The effectiveness of using text and pictograms on oral rehydration, dry-mixture sachet labels.

Jeanne Heyns,Angeni Bheekie,Mea Van Huyssteen

doi:10.4102/phcfm.v13i1.2646

Abstract

BackgroundMedication labels are often the only information available to patients after obtaining medication from a healthcare practitioner. Pictograms are graphic symbols that have shown to increase understanding of medicine use instructions.AimTo compare the accuracy of the interpretation of medicine use instructions from two different oral rehydration (OR) dry-mixture sachet labels – the control ‘routine textonly’ label and an experimental label with ‘text-and-pictograms’.SettingParticipants were recruited from waiting rooms in public primary health care (PHC) facilities in Cape Town.MethodEach participant was required to answer six questions about OR preparation. Response accuracy was determined by comparing the participant’s answer to the actual information written on the relevant label. Afterwards, participants could offer their opinion about the label and ways to improve their understanding.ResultsOf the 132 participants who were recruited, 67 were allocated to the experimental group and 65 to the control group. Only the significant difference between the experimental and control groups for the six questions regarding the label, was recorded for the answer that could be read from a single pictogram (p = 0.00) on the experimental group’s label. When asked about this question, more control participants (15/65) found the dosing instruction difficult to understand when compared to the experimental group (1/67). A third of the control participants (22/65) indicated that they could not see or locate instructions on the label.ConclusionText and pictograms on written medicine labels may be an effective tool to aid understanding of medicine use instructions amongst patients attending PHC facilities.

Highlights

Medication labels are often the only information available to patients after obtaining medication dispensed from the pharmacy or by other healthcare practitioners
Two questions that directly pertained to the interpretation of pictograms and text on the experimental medicine label, included the pictogram pertaining to dosing of oral rehydration (OR) solution (Question 4) and four sequential pictograms illustrating the preparation of OR solution (Question 3)
The positive effects of pictograms were consistent with other studies carried out in South Africa where text-only medicine information was compared with text-and-pictogram information.[2,11]

Summary

Introduction

Medication labels are often the only information available to patients after obtaining medication dispensed from the pharmacy or by other healthcare practitioners. Pictograms are simple, clear graphic symbols,[5] representing words or phrases.[6] Pictograms are sometimes used to represent information about medication, doses, precautions and warnings in picture format.[7] Its use has shown to support patients’ ability to understand medicine information[8] and adhere to medication regimens.[9] South African studies of pictograms on medicine labels and patient information leaflets (PIL) are prevalent[10] and most evidence ( not exclusively) are available for isiXhosa speaking individuals from the Eastern Cape Province for antiretroviral medicines and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated opportunistic infections.[11,12,13,14]. Medication labels are often the only information available to patients after obtaining medication from a healthcare practitioner. Pictograms are graphic symbols that have shown to increase understanding of medicine use instructions

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Conclusion