A comparative evaluation of written medicine information of antidiabetic medicines from Qatar, Australia and Europe

Background

Written medicine information (WMI) is valuable for health communication and encouraging the appropriate use of medicines by patients. Medicine regulations differ between countries, reflecting variations in WMI in terms of content and quality. The World Health Organization has recommended the provision of unbiased drug information to serve consumers. The objective of this study was to compare WMI of antidiabetic medications authorized for marketing in Australia, Europe, and Qatar using different quality criteria.

Methods

Twelve WMI that were approved by respective regulatory agencies (RAs) in Australia, Europe, and Qatar were selected for quality evaluations. The evaluation tools used in this study were the DISCERN instrument and the Ensuring Quality Information for Patients (EQIP) tool in addition to the Flesch reading ease (FRE) score, and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level (FKGL) formula.

Result

WMI from Qatar do not follow a specific format while those from Australia and the Europe follow the CMI and PIL formats, respectively. The best FRE and FKGL scores were achieved using WMI from Australia and Europe, respectively. There are significant differences (p ≤ 0.001) between the EQIP scores of WMI from Qatar vs. Australia and the EMA, while there are no significant differences (p = 0.134) between the EQIP scores of WMI from Europe and Australia.

Conclusion

The quality and content of WMI are highly variable between different sources with some countries exhibiting best practices. The findings suggest the need for harmonization of guidelines for development or format to ensure global standardization of patient friendly WMI.

Other Information

Published in: Cogent Medicine
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331205x.2019.1620904