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Effects of tall man lettering on the visual behaviour of critical care nurses while identifying syringe drug labels: a randomised in situ simulation

Lohmeyer, Quentin; Schiess, Cornel; Wendel Garcia, Pedro David; Petry, Heidi; Strauch, Eric; Dietsche, Andreas; Schuepbach, Reto A; Buehler, Philipp K; Hofmaenner, Daniel A (2023). Effects of tall man lettering on the visual behaviour of critical care nurses while identifying syringe drug labels: a randomised in situ simulation. BMJ Quality and Safety, 32(1):26-33.

Abstract

Background: Patients in intensive care units are prone to the occurrence of medication errors. Look-alike, sound-alike drugs with similar drug names can lead to medication errors and therefore endanger patient safety. Capitalisation of distinct text parts in drug names might facilitate differentiation of medication labels. The aim of this study was to test whether the use of such ‘tall man’ lettering (TML) reduces the error rate and to examine effects on the visual attention of critical care nurses while identifying syringe labels.
Methods: This was a prospective, randomised in situ simulation conducted at the University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. Under observation by eye tracking, 30 nurses were given 10 successive tasks involving the presentation of a drug name and its selection from a dedicated set of 10 labelled syringes that included look-alike and sound-alike drug names, half of which had TML-coded labels. Error rate as well as dwell time, fixation count, fixation duration and revisits were analysed using a linear mixed-effects model analysis to compare TML-coded with non-TML-coded labels.
Results: TML coding of syringe labels led to a significant decrease in the error rate (from 5.3% (8 of 150 in non-TML-coded sets) to 0.7% (1 of 150 in TML-coded sets), p<0.05). Eye tracking further showed that TML affects visual attention, resulting in longer dwell time (p<0.01), more and longer fixations (p<0.05 and p<0.01, respectively) on the drug name as well as more frequent revisits (p<0.01) compared with non-TML-coded labels. Detailed analysis revealed that these effects were stronger for labels using TML in the mid-to-end position of the drug name.
Conclusions: TML in drug names changes visual attention while identifying syringe labels and supports critical care nurses in preventing medication errors.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:04 Faculty of Medicine > University Hospital Zurich > Institute of Intensive Care Medicine
Dewey Decimal Classification:610 Medicine & health
Uncontrolled Keywords:Health Policy
Language:English
Date:January 2023
Deposited On:14 Jul 2022 14:59
Last Modified:27 Oct 2024 02:41
Publisher:BMJ Publishing Group
ISSN:2044-5415
OA Status:Hybrid
Free access at:PubMed ID. An embargo period may apply.
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2021-014438
PubMed ID:35260415
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