Call for OTC medicine label improvements
Over-the-counter medicine labels must incorporate good design and readable wording to improve usability and medicine safety, researchers say.
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A literature review conducted by an international research team, including academics for the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Pharmacy, found consumers need to be at the centre of evaluation procedures to ensure they can find and understand information.
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Their review of 35 studies found that while many labels were broadly successful in transmitting necessary information, there were often problems in consumers quickly locating important information, or understanding key messages.
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Good information design and clearer wording were essential requirements, the researchers said, as were pre-release consumer testing, and the development of evaluation tools.
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Consumer ‘user testing’ of OTC written medicine information was uncommon, the researchers found. This “potentially contributed to poor performance of available labels and leaflets,” they added. ContactMagazine – Read more…
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