Written information about individual medicines for consumers

Abstract

Background Medicines are the most common intervention in most health services. As with all treatments, those taking medicines need su icient information: to enable them to take and use the medicines e ectively, to understand the potential harms and benefits, and to allow them to make an informed decision about taking them. Written medicines information, such as a leaflet or provided via the Internet, is an intervention that may meet these purposes. Objectives To assess the e ects of providing written information about individual medicines on relevant patient outcomes (knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and health outcomes) in relation to prescribed and over-the-counter medicines. Search methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, PsycINFO and other databases to March 2007. We handsearched five journals' tables of contents, and the reference lists of included studies, and contacted experts in the field. Selection criteria Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of medicine users, comparing written medicines information with no written medicines information; or trials that compared two or more styles of written medicines information. We only included trials that measured a knowledge, attitudinal or behavioural outcome. There were no language restrictions. Data collection and analysis Two review authors independently extracted data relating to the interventions, methods of the trials, and outcome measures; and reconciled di erences by discussion. Heterogeneity of interventions and outcomes measured meant that data synthesis was not possible. The results are presented in narrative and tabular format. Main results We included 25 RCTs involving 4788 participants. Six of twelve trials showed that written information significantly improved knowledge about a medicine, compared with no written information. The inability to combine results means we cannot conclude whether written information was e ective for increasing knowledge. The results for attitudinal and behavioural outcomes were mixed. No studies showed an adverse e ect of medicines information. Written information about individual medicines for consumers (Review)

Implementation strategies for health systems in low-income countries: an overview of systematic reviews

“…We judged 32 reviews to have only minor limitations. We judged the other seven reviews to have methodological limitations that were important enough to make it worthwhile to search for another systematic review or to interpret the review results cautiously, if no better review were available (Baskerville 2012;Haynes 2008;Ko 2011;Nicolson 2009;Ranji 2008). We assessed the included reviews as being well conducted in relation to the identification, selection and critical appraisal of the included studies.…”

“…However, we assessed the comprehensiveness of the search for evidence as only partially achieved in 19 reviews. We also assessed the included reviews as being well conducted in relation to the analysis of the available evidence, with only a few of them presenting limitations related to descriptions of the extent of heterogeneity (Haynes 2008;Nicolson 2009;Perrier 2011;Ranji 2008), the methods used to synthesise the evidence (Haynes 2008;Ko 2011;Nicolson 2009;Pande 2013;Perrier 2011), and the examination of factors that might explain differences in the results of included studies (Gould 2010;Nicolson 2009;Pande 2013;Ranji 2008).…”

“…Mass media interventions may lead to an increase in the number of infected people diagnosed through voluntary counselling and testing. The second review (25 studies) addressed the effects of written information about prescribed and over-the-counter medicines (Nicolson 2009). Written medicine information may lead to little or no difference in adherence to instructions compared with no written information (low-certainty evidence).…”

Avaliação da legibilidade de folhetos informativos e literacia em saúde

“…5 In fact, Directive 2001/83/EC a requires, among other requisites, the PL be written and designed to be clear, legible and understandable in the offi cial language or languages of the Member States, in which the product will be marketed. The European Medicines Agency issued a directive in 2009 providing indications of readability, i.e., on how to present the content of labelling and the PL.…”

Getting to Better Prescription Drug Information

“…Fundamental changes in the presentation and content are needed to ensure that patients get the information that Medication Guides should communicate. Here are some suggestions based on the findings of Wolf et al, 4 other recent literature, 3,[5][6][7][8] and our own work in this area over the past decade : [9][10][11][12][13][14][15] …”