E-drug: Patient education (cont'd)
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Key element to patient education program is written patient
information leaflets. To be able to establish reliable program, a start
point will be approved drug monographs since they are the legal drug
documents. You could rely on the USA, Canada, UK, or Australia for
a specific drug monograph. However, drug monographs are written in
a technical language that is suitable for health care professionals. To
make a drug monograph useful for a lay person, aside from updating
its content regularly, the language requires modification and
translation. Easing the language does not mean watering down/
weaken the language to communicate warnings, contraindications,
precautions; or omitting information. The ethical concept behind
educating patients is to prevent harm and to improve public health.
The aim is to make patients fully aware about the risk/benefit
elements of their treatments so they know when to stop taking drug
should serious adverse drug reactions developed or not to take the
drug if they have contraindicating clinical conditions. Baring in mind
that many new drugs that were recently approved then suspended
from the market because of dangerous/fatal adverse drug reactions,
an additional optimal benefit of disseminating up to date complete
drug information to patients is to track down on drugs with dangerous
adverse drug reactions, so patients could actively be engaged in
reporting adverse drug reactions and not relying on ill drug approval
systems in the developed or the developing countries.
To date, there is no law in the US or Canada to mandate complete
and reliable written patient information leaflets. Unless the law is
established, no improvement in this area would be expected. Many
studies have conducted to examine the quality of written patient
information in the US. Poor quality of the circulating patient
information leaflets was the conclusion. A recent small study was
conducted by the Public Citizen in Washington DC, involving three
internet patient drug information sources, the examined written
patient information have failed basic criteria in communicating black
box warning to patients. In Canada, A pilot study that I have
co-authored and was published in the Canadian Medical Association
Journal (Cisapride and patient information leaflets. Can. Med. Assoc.
J. May 2001; 164: 1276-b - 1278.) shown poorly written patient
information leaflets were disseminated by Canadian pharmacists to
their patients. I am not certain about Australia or the UK but I suspect
same problem exist.
Lastly, money wise, you need an independent fund for patient
information education program so no pharmaceutical company will be
able to use it as a new vehicle to promote their products.
Sana R. Sukkari
Oncology/Palliative Care Pharmacist
Ontario, Canada
e-mail: ssukkari@jbmh.com
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