A little knowledge

Abstract

Errors made by injection-experienced and injection-inexperienced participants were compared to test whether injection experience relates to use errors among potential users of a new injection device. In our sample, healthcare professionals (Group 1) made the fewest errors overall while there was also a trend for injection-experienced laypeople (Group 2) to make more errors than injection-inexperienced laypeople (Group 3). Furthermore, the types of errors made by each of the two layperson groups appear distinct from each other, with the pattern of errors made by injection-experienced laypeople more closely resembling the pattern among medical professionals. We speculate that medically experienced laypeople might inherit the "worst of both worlds" in that, as laypeople, they make errors due to inexperience with medical procedures and that also, like healthcare professionals, they make errors due to negative transfer from past experience with medical procedures. We suggest that experienced laypeople require special consideration as a potentially vulnerable user group.