A comparative evaluation of written medicine information of antidiabetic medicines from Qatar, Australia and Europe

Emad Eldin Munsour,Zeinab Dabbous,Mohamed Azmi Ahmad Hassali,Hamda Ali,Ahmed Awaisu,Amr Elshaer

doi:10.1080/2331205x.2019.1620904

Abstract

AbstractBackground: 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 foll...

Highlights

Written medicine information (WMI) is valuable for encouraging the appropriate use of medicines by patients and assists in communication with health care providers; WMI is available as printable documents and package inserts (Luk, Tasker, Raynor, & Aslani, 2010)
The quality and content of WMI are highly variable between different sources with some countries exhibiting best practices
The findings suggest the need for harmonization of guidelines for development or format to ensure global standardization of patient friendly WMI

Summary

Introduction

Written medicine information (WMI) is valuable for encouraging the appropriate use of medicines by patients and assists in communication with health care providers; WMI is available as printable documents and package inserts (Luk, Tasker, Raynor, & Aslani, 2010). Health care systems and medicine regulations differ between countries, which subsequently reflects the substantial variations in WMI in terms of content, terminology, design, layout, and quality (Luk et al, 2010). Countries such as New Zealand have stipulated mandatory regulations about the necessity of providing patients with appropriate drug information for their prescribed medicines (PHARMACY COUNCIL OF NEW ZEALAND, 2011).

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Discussion

Conclusion