Top-Down Processing of Drug Names Can Induce Errors in Discriminating Similar Pseudo-Drug Names by Nurses

One factor that could cause medical errors is confusing medicines with similar names. A previous study showed that nurses who have knowledge about drugs faced difficulty in discriminating a drug name from similar pseudo-drug names. To avoid such errors, finger-pointing and calling (FPC) has been recommended in Japan.

The present study had two aims. The first was to determine whether such difficulty was due to top-down processing, rather than bottom-up processing, being applied even for pseudo-names. The other was to investigate whether FPC affected error prevention for similar drug names.

In two experiments, nurses and non-health care professionals performed a choice reaction time task for drug names and common words, with or without FPC. Error rate and reaction time were analyzed.

When drug names were used, nurses showed difficulty discriminating target names from distractors. Furthermore, the error prevention effect of FPC was marginally significant for drug names. However, nurses showed no significant differences when similar drug names were used. There was no significant difference regarding the error rate for words.

Nurses' knowledge of drug names activates top-down processing. As a result, the processing of drug names was not as accurate and quick as that for words for nurses, which caused difficulty in discriminating similar names. FPC may be applicable to reduce confusion errors, possibly by leading individuals to process drug names using bottom-up processing.

The present study advances current knowledge about error tendencies with similar drug names and the effects of FPC on error prevention.