How often do you follow the instructions doctors and pharmacists give you about how and when to take prescription medicine? If you’re like millions of Americans, then the answer is probably a confident, “sometimes.” That “sometimes” should definitely become an “always.”
We all know slugging back a few pills each day costs us less time, pain and money than getting stuck in the doctor’s office or hospital over and over because our illness won’t leave. But as we also all know that taking our medication can be hard to remember, nonetheless take it on time every day. This forgetfulness is the biggest reason that self-administered medication has an average non-adherence rate of 50 percent. Non-adherence leads to messy things like missed medications (especially if you’re taking more than one), under-dosage, over-dosage and erratic dosage.
Okay, that sounds worrisome, but how much of a big deal is missing a pill or two?
As it turns out, taking your medication correctly is really important.
In 2014, pharmaceuticals spending in the United States increased to nearly $374 billion. But if patients took their medication correctly, then it could eliminate $105 billion annually in avoidable health care costs. When people—particularly seniors and chronically ill patients—take their medicine at the wrong time, dose or frequency, they create surplus strain on doctors and hospitals because their treatment won’t work as efficiently.
Patients not taking their medicine properly leads to an estimated 10 to 25 percent of nursing home and hospital admissions, 30 to 50 percent of treatment failures, and an annual 125,000 preventable deaths.
But there is good news. A new study by researchers from the City University of Hong Kong reinforces a treatment theme growing more common among doctors and pharmacists: smart medication packaging can improve adherence rates.
The research, recently published in the journal Applied Ergonomics, shows that including pictograms on written medication instructions helps patients—especially seniors—take their medicine correctly.
In the City University of Hong Kong study, the researchers asked a group of 50 people, aged 65 to 84 years old, to read and understand the medical instructions printed on five different drugs. The goal was to test instruction comprehension. Each participant took at least one of five drugs commonly used among seniors.
The people were divided into two groups. One group of study participants received the medical instructions as a generic, text-only version. The other group was given the text alongside a variety of pictograms.
The researchers discovered that including pictograms on a prescription drug label helped older people better understand medical information and instructions. Medications with descriptive images can relay plenty of information, such as “take with meals” or “do not leave in direct sunlight.” Plus it provides very visual warnings like “poison” and “do not leave near children,” the study states.
“Information on medicine labels can sometimes be confusing, especially if a patient has several medications to contend with. Including a few simple pictures on a medicine label helps older people to read and understand this information,” Dr. Annie Ng, the lead author from the City University of Hong Kong, said in a statement. “This not only prevents accidental overdose, it relieves some of the pressure that our aging population is putting on the health service by avoiding preventable tragedies.”
Saving us from ourselves can be tricky. We all need medicine at some point in life, and we need to learn how to use it properly, which is why trusting your gut when you’re in the doctor’s office is important. Doctors and pharmacists expect you to ask questions, so don’t be nervous to ask them about a medication, why they’re prescribing it and how you’re supposed to take it.
Ng and her team focused on seniors in the study because older people form the largest group of medication users, and they’re more likely to use multiple medications to thwart different ailments. Unlike younger, generally healthier people who typically only have a few—if any—medications to take, older patients can have several handfuls of pills to swallow and tend to only remember about 20-60 percent of the instructions they’ve heard, the study shows.
“We focused on seniors but we believe this research could help a much wider demographic,” Ng said in a statement. “People with vision problems or difficulties comprehending basic written information, for example, will be able to better understand their medication needs, which will help their health and support their independence.”
So what does this mean for you?
Overall, you’ll be healthier if this research fully transitions to the market and builds on other packaging innovations.
These pictographs will likely improve on a packing method that you’ve likely already encountered: blister packs.
Blister packs have improved medication adherence by nearly 97 percent adherence in some situations, and the main reasons are because they let you know what pills to take and when to take them. They’re often interactive and include calendars or color-coordinated wheels to make it easier for you to know how much medicine you have left, if you’ve taken the drug that day and how much you need to take. Medication adherence has when the person’s medications were packaged in smart, informational packaging.
The goal among many health care industry experts is to make taking your medication nearly foolproof, so you never miss a dosage and get well faster and for less money. Combining blister packs with pictographs might just be the solution the industry is looking for.
Whatever method pans out, there is one thing we can be certain about: we’ll all be a bit healthier when we don’t forget to correctly take our medicine.