Improved Wordings On Medicine Labels

 Called For

The British National Formulary (BNF), the authoritative source of medicines information used by doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals, are recommending that medicine labels be improved to ensure that the wording used is better understood by patients.



The recommendations follow extensive user research carried out by Professor Theo Raynor, Professor of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Leeds, and his colleagues at Luto Research.

Professor Raynor has long been concerned about the phenomenon of patient non-compliance and the important factor of misinterpretation or misunderstanding of instructions. “Most medicines”, he says, “do contain leaflets which provide detailed information for patients. However the leaflet may get lost which means that the label on the medicine plays a very important part in guiding people’s behaviour. It is vital therefore that wordings on labels are simple and straightforward”.



The proposed changes include terminology that is better understood by patients. For example, user-testing showed that the word “drowsiness” is not always readily understood and has been improved by using the wording “This medicine may make you sleepy”.



The recommended changes also produce more precise instructions which present little opportunity for different interpretations. Thus the wording “Avoid alcoholic drink” is replaced with “Do not drink alcohol while taking this medicine”.



According to Professor Nick Barber, Professor of Pharmacy at London University: “When serious errors occur which cause harm to patients, it is often as a result of a series of minor failures at various stages. Therefore in taking more care about the wording of detailed instructions we can help improve the safety of medicines. With two million prescriptions being issued every day, a small percentage improvement through labels being more understandable could make a significant impact”. 



Duncan Enright, Publishing Director at BNF Publications said: “It has never been easier to change labels on medicines given current computerised systems and therefore we hope that the large pharmacy chains and independent pharmacies will adopt these recommendations”.

(BMcN/GK)