RESUMEN

Dispensing errors pose a significant health risk, with drug name similarity being a potential contributory factor. To determine the impact of drug name similarity on dispensing errors within clinical settings, we analyzed 563 dispensing errors at an acute hospital in Japan from April 2015 to June 2018. Drug name similarity between two drugs was classified into Name-Similar and Name-Dissimilar groups using the m2-vwhtfrag index, the value of the drug name similarity. Drug efficacy similarity was categorized into Efficacy-Same, Efficacy-Close, and Efficacy-Far. The drug name similarity and drug efficacy similarity of all possible pair combinations were obtained and similarly classified. The proportion of the number of pairs with dispensing errors per the total number of drug pairs in the hospital's drug formulary in each category was calculated. The highest proportion of the number of pairs with dispensing errors was 36% for the Efficacy-Same and Name-Similar group, and the lowest proportion was 0.022% for the Efficacy-Far and Name-Dissimilar group. The proportion of the number of pairs with dispensing errors was significantly higher in the Name-Similar category than in the Name-Dissimilar category for all drug efficacy categories. Our results indicate that drug name similarity increases the risk of dispensing errors, and that m2-vwhtfrag is a useful indicator to assess dispensing errors in clinical practice. Such drug name and efficacy similarity evaluations can help identify factors causing dispensing errors, and predict the risk of dispensing errors for newly adopted drugs, considering the relationship with the whole drug formulary in the hospital dispensary.

Asunto(s)

Errores de Medicación , Errores de Medicación/prevención & control , Errores de Medicación/clasificación , Humanos , Japón , Servicio de Farmacia en Hospital

RESUMEN

Namesaking (naming a child after a parent or other relative) can be viewed as a mechanism to increase perceived parent-child similarity and, consequently, parental investment. Male and, to a lesser extent, firstborn children are more frequently namesakes than female and later-born children, respectively. However, a direct link between namesaking and parental investment has not been examined. In the present study, 632 participants (98 men and 534 women) from Central Europe indicated their first name, sex, birth order, number of siblings, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, paternal and maternal first names, as well as relationship quality with, and time and financial investment they received from, both parents during childhood. Mixed-effects models revealed associations between namesaking and parental investment. However, the effect of namesaking often appeared significant only in interaction with specific predictors, such as sex and primogeniture. It suggests instead that namesaking has an additive effect-it enhances the effect of biological factors on parental investment. In general, we found evidence for the bias in parental investment linked to name similarity among both parents, and support for the hypothesis that namesaking serves as a mechanism to increase paternity confidence and, thus, paternal investment. The effect of namesaking influences only certain types of parental investment-namely, those at the level of relationship quality. In addition, nonheterosexual orientation was the strongest negative predictor of paternal investment. Our study extends the research on parental investment by showing that cultural mechanisms, such as namesaking, can also exert some influence on parental rearing behavior.

Asunto(s)

Padre , Padres , Orden de Nacimiento , Relaciones Familiares , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Paternidad

RESUMEN

<b>Objective: </b>The purpose of this study is to investigate incidents of erroneously dispensed drugs on the assumption that the incidents stem from the similar names of the drugs.  The investigation was also conducted to prevent such dispensing incidents in the future, i.e. to search for factors that can prevent future incidents, and finally to propose a prevention plan which takes each of these factors into account.<br><b>Methods: </b>We extracted incident cases related to generic drugs reported by pharmacies in Japan and from those cases examined those that were categorized as cases of erroneously dispensed medicine.  We used this data to categorize the difference in relationship between the drugs which were supposed to be prescribed and those which were erroneously dispensed, and to analyze the association between the “Flowchart for Avoiding Confusion Errors between Similarly Named Drugs” and the name similarity index based on this flowchart.<br><b>Results: </b>The types of incident cases due to name similarities of generic drugs were categorized into specification mistakes and brand mistakes.  The edit of the name similarity index were especially important factors for dispensing incidents between generic drugs.<br><b>Conclusion: </b>This study focusing on generic drugs revealed the factors that result in dispensing incidents due to name similarity.  Further empirical studies investigating the usefulness of interventions that alter the name similarity index is required.