Evaluation of Health Care Professionals and Patients Opinions of “Indication Symbol” Printed on Systemic Transdermal Absorbent Preparation of Isosorbide Dinitrate to Prevent Medication Errors

摘要

The effectiveness of printing an “Indication Symbol” and the product name on a systemic transdermal absorbent preparation of isosorbide dinitrate (Frandol® tape-S) in preventing medication errors was evaluated through a questionnaire survey of health care professionals and patients. The numbers of completed questionnaire sheets collected for health care professionals were 7, 078 from physicians, 7, 018 from nurses, and 7, 361 from pharmacists (collection rates 70.2-73.6% of the target of 10000). The number of completed questionnaire postcards collected from patients was 1, 339 (44.6% of target of 3, 000).Both health care professionals and patients thought it was a good idea to print an indication symbol, a heart, and the product name on the preparation as a measure to prevent medication errors. Some differences were observed in the answers given to some of the questions among the former, however, indicating the importance of asking many different health care professionals to evaluate measures for preventing medication errors. Sixty percent of the patients returning the questionnaire said that they though it was a good idea to print an indication symbol and product name on the preparation and they had not seen any other product with this feature, but they were not particularly concerned about this.We hope that unified indication symbols will be adopted by all pharmaceutical companies and that their use will be expanded to all categories of systemic transdermal absorbent preparations in order to prevent medication errors.