The package user test: a method for improving medicines packaging

摘要

POOR design or similarity of medicine packaging and labelling predispose to medication errors, especially when there is orthographic similarity between drug names. The former National Patient Safety Agency advocated the user testing of medicine packaging with patients, carers and pharmacists using a method similar to that for patient information leaflet (PIL) testing. Such approaches have their limitations. They tend to focus on the information shown on the back of packs and do not test for easy distinction between one pack and another. Neither do they assess the relative prominence of critical information on a given pack such as the medicine name, variant, strength, number and form. Pack differentiation can only be tested in the context of other "distracting" packs. This differentiation is important when the comparators are the same product at different strengths or doses, or different products with look alike or sound alike names. We sought to develop a practical but comprehensive package user test that evaluates all of these variables for all users.