Considering the impact of medicine label design characteristics on patient safety

Authors: Hellier, E.; Edworthy, J.; Derbyshire, N.; Costello, A.

Source: Ergonomics, Volume 49, Numbers 5-6, -6/15 April–15 May 2006 , pp. 617-630(14)

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $56.94 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

Medication errors involving patients receiving the wrong medicines, the wrong dosages or failure to take medicines according to the prescribed schedule are a substantial threat to patient safety. In the medical domain, research evidence on the benefits of improved labelling are piecemeal and often single-product or single-manufacturer driven and often do not inform the more general process of label design. Government and other guidelines on this topic are often low level and non-specific, often failing to give evidence-based guidance. However, there is a wealth of evidence-based research findings in related areas such as food labelling, chemical labelling and more general warnings research, which can provide systematic evidence on the effects of design characteristics such as font size, colour, signal words and linguistic usage on crucial performance variables such as compliance, understandability and discriminability. This research is reviewed and its relevance to medicine labelling is presented.

Keywords: Patient safety; Label design; `Warning' labels

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140130600568980

Affiliations: 1: Centre for Thinking and Language, School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA, UK

Publication date: 2006-01-01

More about this publication?