Examining Text Enhancement Methods to Improve Look-alike Drug Name Differentiation Accuracy

Abstract

The current study examined the use of several text enhancement methods with the aim of improving the accuracy of differentiating between confusing look-alike drug names. It also evaluated the influence of orthographic similarity. Although Tall Man (uppercase) lettering is recommended as a means of improving such differentiation, studies have produced mixed results on its efficacy, with other typographic styles suggested as potential alternatives. In the present study, university students (n = 40) participated in a differentiation task in which they were asked to determine whether the two drug names in each of 336 potentially confusing name pairs were the same or different. Accuracy (the proportion of correct responses) was the study outcome. The experiment adopted a two-way, within-subjects factorial design, the factors being text enhancement (Tall Man, boldface, boldface+Tall Man, colored text (red), and contrast and a lowercase control) and orthographic similarity (low, medium, and high degrees of similarity). The results showed text enhancement, orthographic similarity, and the interaction term to have significant main effects. The accuracy of each of the five text enhancement conditions was significantly greater than that of the lowercase control, and, relative to Tall Man lettering, all of the other text enhancement methods produced significantly higher degrees of accuracy. With regard to orthographic similarity, a high degree of similarity yielded the least accuracy, followed by medium and low degrees. Highlighting the primary dissimilarities between confusing drug name pairs using text enhancement methods clearly makes the names easier to differentiate, although Tall man lettering may not be the most effective such method. The results of this study demonstrate that other typographic styles have greater potential to render confusing look-alike names more visually distinct and to reduce confusion errors.