Tachistoscopic Study on the Impact of Net Quantity and Dosage Strength Proximity on Dosage Strength Recognition in Prescription Drug Labels

Abstract

A study was conducted to assess the impact of two different drug label layouts on pharmacy practitioners' ability to correctly extract critical information. Labels were shown to 43 participants under time-pressure conditions, using tachistoscopic presentation. The two layouts did not differ in terms of recognition accuracy, and the anticipated interference between two label elements, dosage strength and net quantity (number of tablets/capsules), when located in close proximity to each other, was not observed. Successive reduction in exposure time (200, 100 and 50 ms) resulted in an increased dosage strength recognition error rate, but the effect was independent of the distance between the dosage strength and net quantity. Possible explanations, as well as the benefit of using tachistoscopic presentation to assess the impact of design changes on user performance are discussed.

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