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Study: Older patients often ignore prescription warning labels
Brightly colored prescription warning labels applied by pharmacies fail to adequately capture the attention of older patients, suggesting that current labeling standards should be reconsidered to make them more effective, according to a study published online June 14 in PLoS ONE.
Brightly colored prescription warning labels (PWLs) applied by pharmacies fail to adequately capture the attention of older patients, suggesting that current labeling standards should be reconsidered to make them more effective, according to a study published online June 14 in PLoS ONE.
According to lead researcher Raghav Prashant Sundar, a graduate student at the School of Packaging, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich., and colleagues, there are currently no universal federal standards for the presentation of information on PWLs and little is known about how patients access and use prescription labeling.
By tracking eye movements, Sundar and colleagues investigated the effectiveness of PWLs in conveying warning information to 2 groups of patients: 15 young adults (7 males, 8 females, age range of 20–29, with an average age of 22.8 years) and 17 adults over the age of 50 (5 males, 12 females, age range of 51–77, with an average age of 62.2 years).
The analyses showed that older patients were less likely to notice a PWL than younger patients (54.0%±17.6% and 91.8%±6.1%, respectively; P=.0396), and color did not appear to increase noticeability.
Although all patients were more likely to direct their gaze at the white pharmacy label (1.35±0.11) than the PWL (0.68±0.07) (P<.05), older patients were less likely to remember PWLs on bottles they had examined, which, the researchers suggest was more a result of where their attention went rather than memory lapse. Gaze tracking indicated that older patients made less total shifts (0.47±0.06) between areas on the bottle than the younger patients (0.85±0.09).
“These data have important implications for understanding possible shortcomings of current PWLs. They provide insight into a potential cause of age-related differences in PWL effectiveness, and suggest that designers should, at least in part, focus on attracting attention,” the authors wrote.
Coalition promotes important acetaminophen dosing reminders
November 18th 2014It may come as a surprise that each year Americans catch approximately 1 billion colds, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as many as 20% get the flu. This cold and flu season, 7 in 10 patients will reach for an over-the-counter (OTC) medicine to treat their coughs, stuffy noses, and sniffles. It’s an important time of the year to remind patients to double check their medicine labels so they don’t double up on medicines containing acetaminophen.
Support consumer access to specialty medications through value-based insurance design
June 30th 2014The driving force behind consumer cost-sharing provisions for specialty medications is the acquisition cost and not clinical value. This appears to be true for almost all public and private health plans, says a new report from researchers at the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID Center) and the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC).
Management of antipsychotic medication polypharmacy
June 13th 2013Within our healthcare-driven society, the increase in the identification and diagnosis of mental illnesses has led to a proportional increase in the prescribing of psychotropic medications. The prevalence of mental illnesses and subsequent treatment approaches may employ monotherapy as first-line treatment, but in many cases the use of combination of therapy can occur, leading to polypharmacy.1 Polypharmacy can be defined in several ways but it generally recognized as the use of multiple medications by one patient and the most common definition is the concurrent use of five more medications. The presence of polyharmacy has the potential to contribute to non-compliance, drug-drug interactions, medication errors, adverse events, or poor quality of life.
Medical innovation improves outcomes
June 12th 2013I have been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer of the pancreas, a disease that’s long been considered not just incurable, but almost impossible to treat-a recalcitrant disease that some practitioners feel has given oncology a bad name. I was told my life would be measured in weeks.
