Patients' Perspective And Usefulness Of Pictograms In Short-Term Antibiotic Therapy - Multicenter, Randomized Trial

• Published in: Patient preference and adherence 2019-10, Vol.13, p.1667-1676
• Main Authors: Merks, Piotr, Świeczkowski, Damian, Balcerzak, Marcin, Drelich, Ewelina, Białoszewska, Katarzyna, Cwalina, Natalia, Zdanowski, Szymon, Krysiński, Jerzy, Gromadzka, Grażyna, Jaguszewski, Miłosz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: adherence to treatment; antibiotic therapy; Antibiotics; Clinical trials; Contract manufacturing; Drug dosages; Drug therapy; Drugstores; Evidence-based medicine; Health care industry; Health care information services; Internet; Medical research; Older people; Original Research; Packaging; Patient compliance; Patient education; patient perspective; Patient satisfaction; pharmaceutical care; Pharmaceutical industry; Pharmaceutical services; pharmacist; Pharmacists; Pharmacy; pictograms; Pictographs; Public health; Questionnaires; satisfaction; Short term
• ISSN: 1177-889X; 1177-889X
• DOI: 10.2147/PPA.S214419

To evaluate the practical utility of pharmaceutical pictograms in routine practice in community pharmacy. The primary outcome (composite endpoint) consisted of three elements: i) complete use of the whole package of medication, ii) taking the recommended dose twice a day, and iii) subjective assessment of patients' perspective on medical information about antibiotic therapy obtained during the pharmacy consultation measured by Net Promoter Score in scale from 1 to 10 where 1 is the lowest and 10 the highest possible rating. A multicenter, randomized controlled study was conducted. Community pharmacies (n = 64) which agreed to participate in the study were assigned to one of two groups: i) study - providing an antibiotic with pictograms placed on the external packaging of the medicinal product containing information about drug regimen (n = 32); or ii) control - providing an antibiotic according to usual pharmacy practice (n = 32). Two semi-structured interviews were performed. Data were collected from 199 patients with a mean age ± SD of 45.5 ± 17.0 years. In the control group, 15.7% of participants discontinued therapy before using the whole package compared with 13.4% of participants in the study group. In the control group, 81.3% of patients reported that they always took the medication twice a day as recommended by their healthcare providers compared with 80.4% of patients in the study group. The Net Promoter Score was higher for pharmacy practice with than without pictograms (71.3% vs 51.5%, respectively,