Background:The readability and comprehensibility of the patient information leaflets (PILs) provided with antidiabetic medications are of questionable standards; this issue negatively affects adherence to drug therapy, especially in patients with limited literacy skills. Objective: To evaluate the readability and comprehensibility of PILs supplied with medications used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus in Qatar. Methods: All PILs of the antidiabetic medications in Qatar were evaluated using the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score for readability. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning-Fog Index, and SMOG Grading were used to estimate the comprehensibility of PILs in terms of school grade levels.. Results: A total of 45 PILs were evaluated: 32 (71.1%) PILs of brand-name products and 13 (28.9%) for generics. Nine (20%) of the PILs were in English only; 8 (17.8%) were in English, Arabic, and French; and 28 (62.2%) were in English and Arabic. The mean FRE score was 37.71 (±15.85), and the most readable PIL had FRE score of 62. The mean scores for the comprehensibility evaluations were 10.96 (±2.67), 15.02 (±2.52), and 11.41 (±1.6) for the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning-Fog Index, and SMOG Grading, respectively. The most commonly used antidiabetic medication was metformin with 1372.9 (±552.9) as PILs' mean number of words. Conclusion: Only 2.2% of PILs had acceptable readability scores. All PILs could be comprehended by at least an 11th grade student, which exceeds the recommended grade level for health-related materials. Approximately 20% of these PILs were in English only and were not readable by most patients.

Background: Written medicine information (WMI) is valuable for health communication and encouraging the appropriate use of medicines by patients. Medicine regulations differ between countries, reflecting variations in WMI in terms of content and quality. The World Health Organization has recommended the provision of unbiased drug information to serve consumers. The objective of this study was to compare WMI of antidiabetic medications authorized for marketing in Australia, Europe, and Qatar using different quality criteria. Methods: Twelve WMI that were approved by respective regulatory agencies (RAs) in Australia, Europe, and Qatar were selected for quality evaluations. The evaluation tools used in this study were the DISCERN instrument and the Ensuring Quality Information for Patients (EQIP) tool in addition to the Flesch reading ease (FRE) score, and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level (FKGL) formula. Result: WMI from Qatar do not follow a specific format while those from Australia and the Europe follow the CMI and PIL formats, respectively. The best FRE and FKGL scores were achieved using WMI from Australia and Europe, respectively. There are significant differences (p ≤ 0.001) between the EQIP scores of WMI from Qatar vs. Australia and the EMA, while there are no significant differences (p = 0.134) between the EQIP scores of WMI from Europe and Australia.

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