Everyone, whether highly or not educated, struggles to read the medication guides which are attached to drugs, reveals a new study.
Michael Wolf, Professor at the Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the study, says, “Anyone who’s seen these are not going to be surprised by the fact that they’re difficult to read. You want to make sure that message is effective. Otherwise it can do major harm.”
The reason why it is so important to understand these guides is because they contain information as to the side effects, risks, the potential interaction with other drugs and reasons for taking the medication as prescribed.
However, this finding is not new, thanks to studies conducted prior to this one, where Wolf and his colleagues have found that patients do not understand these medication guides and sometimes don’t receive them along with the drugs as well.
Yet the reason for this new study was because the number of guides that came along with the drugs increased to 305 in number as opposed to just 40 in 2006.
The researchers studied 185 of these guides and also conducted tests (a set of questions were asked about the guides) among patients at two Chicago clinics. Not suprisingly, even though people with low literacy fared the worst, people who were well-educated could answer only 65% of the questions.
They also found that these guides were written in such a manner that only people at the 10th or 11th grade reading level could understand them. Other researchers say that it would be best if these guides were written for people with a 4th to 8th reading grade level.
Wolf also emphasized that patients should not hesitate to ask their doctors or pharmacists questions regarding their medication – that is, until easier medication guides are developed.
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