Evaluation of Knowledge and Awareness of Patients about Prescribed Drugs and their Package Inserts: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: The package insert (PI) is an officially approved mandatory document inside the package with the intention to provide relevant, recent and unbiased information for rational drug use. The information accompanying the drug is approved by the regulatory agencies. Pharmaceutical companies use PIs as one of the means to promote information regarding marketed products. In India, assessment of the PIs of drugs by patients is rare. Hence, this study is an attempt to assess the importance of different aspects of PIs along with an appraisal of patients’ knowledge of the prescribed drug regimen. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study around 200 patients between 18 and 70 years of age, taking medications were interviewed with a pre-validated semi-structured questionnaire adapted from the previous studies. Results and Observations: Out of 200 patients 87 were taking medications for chronic while 113 for acute diseases. The majority (61.5%) never read while only 13% always read the information in PIs. Dosage (35.5%) and uses (33.5%) were among highest read columns by patients. Females were found to have more knowledge and awareness about PIs. Conclusion: PIs have an important impact on the patients compliance and thus on the effectiveness of drug use. However, patients need to be more aware about reading the information in PIs.