Drug abuse: how to correctly decipher the instructions?

Who actually bothered to read them? Medicine instructions—large sheets of paper folded into 16 sections with the same (long) text in multiple languages—are often left at the bottom of boxes because they are so tedious. However, they are rich in information that is sometimes necessary to know, such as contraindications and possible side effects.

These instructions are provided by manufacturers to health authorities during the marketing authorization procedure. They also include the reasons why the drug is recommended, precautions for use, how to use it, dosage that should not be exceeded, etc. “Clear presentation of information is critical to making it easier for patients to access important messages,” the National Agency warned on the safety of medicines (ANSM) in 2014.

Manufacturers have gradually worked to make their instructions more accessible: easy-to-read fonts, abbreviated paragraphs and sentences, spaces, etc. “If the text is dense, the patient loses concentration and cannot find the information he needs,” it warns, in particular . ANSM, which calls for “avoiding long enumerations, especially due to undesirable effects” and “favoring left-aligned text over justified text, the latter creating uneven letter spacing,” among other recommendations.

Instructions will soon be available on smartphones

Since 2006, manufacturers have been “conducting readability tests with target patient groups to ensure that they are able to, on the one hand, find information (readability), on the other hand, understand (clarity) and, finally, put it into practice,” – says Lim (Les Entreprises du Medicinee). This pharmaceutical lobby was the first to recognize the need to “make instructions more educational.”

This year 2024 will also see a small revolution: instructions for use of some medicines, including those intended for the general public such as paracetamol and ibuprofen, will be available on smartphones by scanning a QR code on the packaging. The goal is to make instructions easier to access and also save paper. Depending on patient feedback, the experiment “may evolve towards eliminating paper leaflets” in the long term, the Department of Health said in mid-December.