Abstract

The existence of confusing drug names was considered one of the leading causes of medication errors. The aim of the study was to summarize the potential sources for errors associated with look-alike and sound-alike (LASA) medicines, to provide overview of the most common patterns and offer recommendations of safety strategies to help mitigate the problem. A standardized questionnaire was conducted for a period of 1 month in 2011. The collected data was statistically analyzed with Microsoft Excel 2007 and SPSS version 17.0. The total of 93 questionnaires was obtained. Two hundred and twenty-three (223) uniqueLASA drug pairs were identified with prevalence to brand names. The modal Bulgarian brand medicine name had 7 letters, 3 syllables and 1 word. The average generic drug name had 10 letters, 4 syllables and 1 word. The top 15 highest risk-potential pairs from both groups were classified by the values of the Dice coefficient and analyzed by possible impact on prescription and pharmacy practice. The results of the study showed that look-alike medicine names were a possible source of medication errors and threat to patient safety in everyday practice. Safety strategies were needed to reduce the risk of medication errors in community and hospital pharmacies related to LASA drugs.

Key words: Patient safety, medication errors, sound-alike and look-alike drug names.