RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN AMBIENT SOUNDS AND THE ACCURACY OF PHARMACISTS PRESCRIPTION-FILLING PERFORMANCE

Associations between ambient sounds and accuracy of pharmacists' presc ription-filling performance in a pharmacy was studied. Pharmacists wer e videotaped as they filled prescriptions each workday for 23 days. Ea ch filled prescription was inspected by the investigator. Deviations f rom the physician's written order were considered errors. Videotape an alysis was used to detect unpredictable, predictable, uncontrollable, and controllable sounds. A within-subjects case control study design w as employed to determine whether the frequency of ambient sounds was s ignificantly different when prescriptions with errors, compared with t hose without errors, were filled. Loudness, in terms of equivalent sou nd levels (L(eq)) for each half hour, was analyzed for a relationship to dispensing error rate. A mean dispensing error rate of 3.23% was fo und. Unpredictable sounds, controllable sounds, and noise had a signif icant effect on pharmacists which resulted in a decreased dispensing e rror rate. These results suggest that the quality of pharmacists' perf ormance is not adversely affected by ambient sound. As equivalent soun d levels increased, the error rate increased to a point, then decrease d.