The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7297 p532
1 May 2004

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CRC closures a disaster, say design researchers

Traditional child-resistant containers (CRCs) are a design disaster, with most adults having to struggle to open them, according to a study publicised this week in the journal of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Patents have been filed for three new child resistant container designs that rely on cognitive reasoning and dexterity: the tri, slide and poke models (left to right)

The study was carried out by Belinda Winder and colleagues from the packaging research group at the University of Sheffield. They wanted to know what consumers thought of CRCs and undertook a diary study with 250 consumers and a questionnaire with 100 volunteers aged 20 to 84 years. Ninety per cent of those in the latter study reported difficulties opening CRCs and evidence suggested that, by the age of 50, the average person could expect to have frequent problems opening this type of packaging.

According to the researchers, the main problem related to the physical strength required to open CRCs. They said that new designs were urgently needed to remedy the design shortcomings and to prevent patients from decanting their medicines into other containers that could be more accessible to children.

Dr Winder says that CRCs should be based on a cognitive, rather than physical key. Opening should not rely on physical strength but should require one or two physically undemanding actions that are too sophisticated for young children to chance upon by accident.

The EPSRC’s journal describes how consultant Factory Design has used this concept to design new CRCs. The “tri” design requires three equidistant buttons to be pressed simultaneously to unscrew the top of a spheroid-shaped container. The “slide” design, for a monitored dosage system, involves three buttons which must be aligned in the correct way for a container to be opened. The “poke” pack is essentially a long tube with an interior spring-loaded catch that can only be released by pressure from an adult-length finger.

Patents on these products have been filed by the Faraday Packaging Partnership, which is looking to grant licences to manufacturers.