Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Duffy, Vincent G.

Committee Member

Greenwood, Allen G.

Committee Member

Jin, Mingzhou

Date of Degree

8-2-2003

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Industrial Engineering

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Industrial Engineering

Abstract

Caregivers of elderly people may make errors in administering medicine. This study aims to determine a more effective method of presenting prescription instructions to caregivers and to determine if the multiple resource hypothesis holds in the context of prescription instructions by evaluating the effect a voice prescription label (that gives audio instructions) has on comprehension and memory of a drug regimen under varying training level, task complexity, and instruction format. In performing a multivariate analyses of variance on data collected among formal and informal caregivers, training level, task complexity, sound condition, and instruction format were found to significantly affect caregivers' memory and comprehension. There is evidence that audio instructions and the matrix format reduce errors. These results could lead to the development of a Medication Scheduling Management System that would organize medicines according to administration time and incorporate decision rules to determine what to do if a dose is missed.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/20321

Comments

caregivers||elderly||medication errors||multiple resource hypothesis

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