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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
In the European Union, all medicines must include appropriate labelling and the respective patient information leaflet
(PIL), which is the most reachable source of medicine’s information for patients. This document includes a set of information understandable by their potential users and complementary to the information provided by health professionals. The ageing of the Portuguese population raises the need
for the appropriateness of medicine’s information for older
consumers, taking into account their specific needs arising
from physiological changes impacting drug action. This
project aimed to analyse the content of medicines’ PILs, specifically directed at older persons. A sample of medicines was
selected considering the 100 active substances more consumed in Portugal by patients with chronic pathologies such
as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia. The
analysis included readability, legibility, and content (directly
and indirectly related to the use of medicines by older persons). A total of 69 PILs were analysed, and it was observed
that the information provided about the drugs was included in most of these PILs (95.7%; n = 66) but without any specific
information for patients belonging to different age groups.
Signalling-specific warnings for older persons were only
available in less than half of the PILs (46.4%; n = 32). The presence of relevant information on the appropriate use of the
drug such as the recommended dose was only specified for
older persons in 28% (n = 19) of the analysed PILs. The information available in PILs which can be considered as specifically directed to older persons is relatively scarce, even in
areas as critical as the instructions for use. Hopefully, these
results will contribute to increasing awareness regarding the
need to adapt PILs’ content to specific consumers and to test
them to guarantee that they are adequate for all potential
consumers.
Description
Keywords
Consumer health information Health literacy Medicines Older persons Patient information leafle
Citation
Publisher
Karger Publishers