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What's in a Name? Lack of Pronunciation in Consumer Medicine Information
Author(s) -
Siderov Jim
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of pharmacy practice and research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 2055-2335
pISSN - 1445-937X
DOI - 10.1002/j.2055-2335.2005.tb00367.x
Subject(s) - medicine , pronunciation , alternative medicine , brand names , family medicine , internet privacy , advertising , linguistics , computer science , business , pathology , philosophy
Antineoplastic drugs entail significant risks. Even modest deviation from prescribed doses can result in unwanted toxicity. Well‐informed patients are a vital link in the safety chain to prevent errors, with verbal communication an essential tool. Good communication is of great importance when dealing with similar sounding names. Errors in prescribing can result where a patient mispronounces the medication they are taking. The purpose of this review was to determine if a pronunciation guide was available in the Consumer Medicine Information for antineoplastic drugs available in Australia. Of the 145 drugs available for review, a Consumer Medicine Information was available in 88% of cases. A pronunciation guide was available for 17% of generic and 2.3% of trade names. Of the oral drugs, a pronunciation guide was available for 7.6% of generic and 3.0% of trade names. Practitioners involved in the preparation of Consumer Medicine Information should consider the inclusion of a pronunciation guide for medicines.