Identification of Pharmacy-specific Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Lacking in the MeSH Thesaurus

Abstract

brand names, their compliance with the current pharmaceutical regulations and with the European Portuguese linguistic systems. Methods:Descriptive analytical study of a representative sample (N1⁄4474) of brands, selected from Portuguese National Medicines Formulary. Firstly, the linguistic evaluation was performed through a dedicated software comprising the quantification of words, letters and syllables in each brand, and including the identification of names with abbreviations and hyphens. Secondly, each brand was individually assessed in relation to their compliance with linguistic rules (e.g. letters or word segments that do not exist in Portuguese), as well as with pharmaceutical regulations (e.g. use of abbreviations). Results: Overall, 166 (35.1%) names were found not to be written in accordance with the orthographic Portuguese system. From the 308 compliant names, 124 (26.2%) included structures of very low frequency in current Portuguese (e.g. names finishing with “x”). The overall average number of letters by name was 8.7 ( 3.2), while 95.6% of the names were composed by less than 4 syllables, in line with general Portuguese. The overall average number of words by name was 1.3 ( 0.7) and there were 20 (4.2%) names presenting hyphens and 36 (7.6%) with abbreviations, which is noncompliant with pharmaceutical regulations. Additionally, 20 brands presented other regulatory issues, such as the use of words “rapid” or “hyper”. Conclusions: The high prevalence of names inspired by foreign languages, which are often deviant from the phonological and orthographic Portuguese systems, bring forward readability concerns. Challenging names suggest difficulties on medicines’ memorization and communication, particularly by low literate patients. Medicines’ brand names should not only follow marketing needs but also the purpose of being completely legible, improving medicines’ safe use.