Abstract

ATTITUDES OF SUDANESE PATIENTS AND THEIR PERCEPTION ON THE IMPORTANCE, UTILITY, READABILITY AND UNDERSTANDABILITY OF PACKAGE INSERTS

Ahmed Tagelsir Mohamed*, Elmustafa Mohamed Osman, Ibrahim Kamal Algarray, Moaz Mohammed Altahir and Yasir Abdelbagi Omer

ABSTRACT

Package inserts (PIs) provide additional written information about medications to patients, physicians and pharmacists. The aims of this study were to assess the acknowledgment of the importance and attitudes of patients towards PIs, to define whether the PI represents a reliable, useful and satisfactory source of information for patients and to assess the degree of accessibility of the PIs by patients. One thousand patients both Khartoum and Wad Medani cities were surveyed by means of a standardized pretested questionnaire. Approximately, 74% of patients claimed that they read medicines’ PIs. Almost 94% of patients who read PIs reported that they found them useful for better use of medications. Almost 70% and 65% of patients respectively believed doses and adverse effects as the most important information they required from PIs. Only 10.2 % of patients reported that physicians and/or pharmacists advised them to read the PIs of drugs before using them. The decision of the patients whether to read the PIs seemed to be affected by both age and educational level. More than half of the sample (50.4%) reported that they faced some difficulties in understanding information included in PIs. Most patients claim to make use of information provided in PIs. However, half of them cannot understand much of this information and are not satisfied with them. The current state of the PIs’ use urges modifications of the the language used and the information included in PIs. Also spreading awareness to rationalize the use of PIs is equally important.

Keywords: Package inserts, Sudanese patients, Readability, Understandability, Attitudes.