ASSESSMENT OF THE DEGREE OF AWARENESS AMONG PHYSICIANS AND PATIENTS ABOUT DRUG PACKAGE INSERTS

The package inserts (PI) are a valuable source of information on drugs for physicians and patients. However, the degree of awareness of PI & their perceptions at both physician and patient front has not been studied in India in current times. The study was undertaken to assess the degree of awareness regarding information in drug package inserts at a tertiary care centre in western India. A questionnaire based survey was conducted among 100 physicians and 100 patients. The questionnaire mainly focused on the level of awareness, understanding and utility of information given in PI. The responses were collated and analyzed.  The results showed that 20% of the physicians admitted that they rarely or never referred to PI. 30% did not consider the PI to be important in their clinical practice & 18% did not feel the need for PI to be always available. 64% opined that the language was too technical for comprehension by lay persons. Only 10% said that they always asked their patients to read the PI. Although 98% of patients knew what a PI was, 30% did not read it because of comprehension problem. Also 28% suggested that the language be made simpler and easily understandable.  The study showed that despite providing detailed information, PI was not optimally used in most cases. Physicians did not feel the need to use them as sources of information whereas, in patients the technical language acted as a barrier to effective use