著者

高橋 斉 玉木 啓文 佐藤 宏樹 澤田 康文

出版者

Japanese Society of Drug Informatics

雑誌

医薬品情報学 (ISSN:13451464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.19, no.2, pp.43-49, 2017 (Released:2017-09-07)

参考文献数

6

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Objective: Generic drugs similar in appearance to their brand-name counterparts have both advantages and disadvantages.  This study aimed to investigate patient preferences regarding the appearance of generic drugs.Design: A cross-sectional survey.Methods: We conducted a web-based survey between 2013 and 2014.  Patients aged ≥40 years who reported taking prescription drugs for >6 months were asked to provide their opinions on the appearance of generic drug formulations and press-through packages (PTPs).  Medical doctors and pharmacists were asked as to what type of appearance of generic drugs would be suitable as well as whether the appearance of these drugs and PTPs should be similar to that of their brand-name counterparts.Results: A total of 911 patients, 238 pharmacists, and 81 medical doctors responded to the survey.  Most of the patients (45.3%) surveyed reported that the similarity in the appearance of generic drug formulations and PTPs to those of their brand-name counterparts was not important, whereas only 15.6% of patients preferred generic drug formulations and PTPs similar in appearance to their brand-name counterparts.  In contrast, most of the medical doctors (53.1%) and pharmacists (88.2%) reported that the appearance of generic drug formulations and PTPs should be similar to that of their brand-name counterparts.Conclusion: Patients’ opinions on the appearance of generic drugs differ from what medical doctors and pharmacists perceive them to be.  Therefore, health care professionals should select generic drugs with an appearance as per the individual patient’s preference.

著者

玉木 啓文 佐藤 宏樹 堀 里子 澤田 康文

出版者

公益社団法人 日本薬学会

雑誌

YAKUGAKU ZASSHI (ISSN:00316903)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.138, no.10, pp.1305-1312, 2018-10-01 (Released:2018-10-01)

参考文献数

17

被引用文献数

1 1

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Similar-appearing press-through package (PTP) sheets (also known as blister packs) that contain different medicines may result in incorrect medication due to confusion errors. To evaluate the significance of this problem and to identify the factors that may lead to such errors, we conducted a questionnaire survey for pharmacists. Three hundred and eighty-two pairs of PTP sheets with similar appearance were included in the questionnaire. Factors related to color (sheet color at the front of the sheet 90.9%, color of tablet/capsule 57.1%, print color at the front of the sheet 45.9%) were most frequently selected as influencing the perceived similarity of the reported pairs, followed by tablet/capsule shape (46.2%), sheet size (32.4%), and mark and character positioning on sheets (6.8%). In the pairs of similar PTP sheets, pairs manufactured by the same pharmaceutical company accounted for 15%. The frequency of confusion errors or near-errors due to similar appearance of PTP sheets was highest at the time of collecting PTP sheets from the medicine shelf and returning the sheets to the medicine shelf, followed by the time of inspection of prepared medicines and medication instructions. The questionnaire results also indicate that patients themselves can confuse similar PTP sheets and take the wrong medicine. Further quantitative studies are needed to clarify the key factors that cause confusion errors due to similar appearance and to identify potential remedial measures.

著者

玉木 啓文 佐藤 宏樹 堀 里子 澤田 康文

出版者

公益社団法人 日本薬学会

雑誌

YAKUGAKU ZASSHI (ISSN:00316903)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.132, no.4, pp.525-529, 2012 (Released:2012-04-01)

参考文献数

4

被引用文献数

1 2

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Confusion of drug names is one of the most common causes of drug-related medical errors. A similarity measure of drug names, “vwhtfrag”, was developed to discriminate whether drug name pairs are likely to cause confusion errors, and to provide information that would be helpful to avoid errors. The aim of the present study was to evaluate and improve vwhtfrag. Firstly, we evaluated the correlation of vwhtfrag with subjective similarity or error rate of drug name pairs in psychological experiments. Vwhtfrag showed a higher correlation to subjective similarity (college students: r=0.84) or error rate than did other conventional similarity measures (htco, cos1, edit). Moreover, name pairs that showed coincidences of the initial character strings had a higher subjective similarity than those which had coincidences of the end character strings and had the same vwhtfrag. Therefore, we developed a new similarity measure (vwhtfrag+), in which coincidence of initial character strings in name pairs is weighted by 1.53 times over coincidence of end character strings. Vwhtfrag+ showed a higher correlation to subjective similarity than did unmodified vwhtfrag. Further studies appear warranted to examine in detail whether vwhtfrag+ has superior ability to discriminate drug name pairs likely to cause confusion errors.