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Putting patients in the picture

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Putting patients in the picture

Using pictures and symbols in place of words on prescriptions could help patients with literacy problems to better understand their medicines, suggests an article in the BMJ Quality Improvement Reports Journal.

The idea was developed in a hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, when staff noticed poor levels of adherence to discharge medication among illiterate patients attending outpatient clinics. An audit revealed that only five per cent of patients who could not read or write understood their prescription, a figure that rose to just 12 per cent after verbal counselling.

Dr Matthew Clayton and his colleagues designed a new discharge prescription form using images of the sun, moon and stars to describe when and how often patients needed to take their medicines, while community pharmacists were informed of the new system. Follow-up surveys revealed that 23 to 35 per cent of illiterate patients understood their prescription after using the new forms.

The study authors commented that the initiative is “likely to be of benefit to large numbers of patients” and could be used with “other patient populations with low literacy levels”. In response, some healthcare professionals called for a similar practice to be adopted in the UK, where a recent survey estimated that one in five adults are ‘functionally illiterate’.

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