Attitude of the Public toward Technical Package Inserts for Medication Information in Belgium

Abstract

Spanish

French

We designed an 84-item questionnaire to determine the attitude of the Belgian public toward package inserts (PI) for medication information, written in technical language and intended for health professionals, within an original drug-dispensing distribution system. There were 398 respondents to this general public survey, based on a 0.05 percent selection from election registers of the districts of Gent and Liège. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents read the PI, focusing their attention principally on adverse effects (88 percent), dosage and dosing guidelines (85 percent), contraindications (82 percent), indications (79 percent), and medication shelf-life (76 percent). Compliance (83 percent), reassurance (57 percent), increased knowledge about the medication (50 percent), and decision to take the medicine (31 percent) were among the respondents' motives for reading the PI. Most respondents considered the PI information useful and complete, but difficult to remember and understand. Readers further criticized its legibility and poor graphic illustration. The PI was seen as a supplementary source of information, instrumental to the physician-pharmacist-patient relationship, without the power to overrule the physician's or pharmacist's instructions. Some respondents reported that the PI made them afraid to use the medication. Expectations for the ideal PI were contradictory and can only be met with a never-optimal compromise between comprehensiveness and conciseness.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Hermann

Herxheimer

Lionel

NDW

. Package inserts for prescribed medicines: What minimum information do patients need? Br Med J 1978; 2: 1132–5.

Joubert

Lasagna

. Patient package inserts. 1. Nature, notions, and needs. Clin Pharmacol Ther 1975; 18: 507–13.

Joubert

Lasagna

. Patient package inserts. II. Toward a rational patient package insert. Clin Pharmacol Ther 1975; 18: 663–9.

Morris

. A survey of patient receipt of prescription drug information. Med Care 1982; 20: 596–605.

Morris

. Global assessment of the patient package insert. In: Bogaert

Vander

Stichele R

Kaufman

Lefebvre

, eds. Patient package insert as a source of drug information. Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica, 1989: 109–17.

Vander

Stichele R

. Patient package inserts as a source of drug information: Review of the literature. In: Bogaert

Vander

Stichele R

Kaufman

Lefebvre

, eds. Patient package insert as a source of drug information. Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica, 1989: 3–11.

Gibbs

Waters

George

. The benefits of prescription information leaflets (1). Br J Clin Pharmacol 1989; 27: 723–39.

Gibbs

Waters

George

. The benefits of prescription information leaflets (2). Br J Clin Pharmacol 1989; 28: 345–51.

Penna

. A hard look at FDA's patient labeling project. Am Pharm 1979; NS19: 16–9.

10.

Vander

Stichele R

Bogaert

. Patient package inserts: The Belgian experience with a mandatory program. Drug Inform J 1989; 23: 673–7.

11.

Cochran

. Sampling techniques. New York: Wiley, 1963: 135–7.

12.

Matthijs

. Belgoscopie. Tielt: Lannoo, 1988: 131.

13.

Sagan

. The health of nations: true causes of sickness and well-being. New York: Basic Books, 1987: 174–83.

14.

Van Haecht

CHM

Vander

Stichele R

Bogaert

. Package inserts for antihypertensive drugs: Use by the patients and impact on adverse drug reactions. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 1990; 39: 551–4.

15.

Van Haecht

CHM

Vander

Stichele R

De Backer

Bogaert

. Impact of patient package inserts of NSAIDs on risk perception Patient Educ Couns (in press).

16.

Culbertson

Arthur

Rhodes

. Consumer preferences for verbal and written medication information. Drug Intell Clin Pharm 1988; 22: 390–6.