Hitoshi Tsukamoto

Analysis of Questionnaire Data Concerning Bar Codes Printed on Ampoule Labels

Although previously only the benefits of medicines were of interest, recently the safety of their use has attracted attention to prevent medical accidents. Our investigation shows that many medicinal near-miss incidents occur because of similarity in names or appearance among different products. To avoid such confusion, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan issued a declaration obligating pharmaceutical companies to display bar codes on the label of ethical medicines to avoid medical accidents. To identify what health care professionals perceive as the ideal layout of a label including the bar code, and to assess their awareness of the declaration and response, we conducted a questionnaire survey targeted at pharmacists and nurses. In this article, we apply a data-mining technique to find relationships between respondent attribute data and response data concerning the ideal bar code display for ampoules and awareness of the issued declaration.