New Ideas to Help People Take Medications Correctly

The Los Angeles Times
March 21, 2011

"Take two tablets by mouth twice daily." This printed instruction, common on prescription pill bottles, might seem straightforward. Yet in a study, nearly half of patients misunderstood what it or other common label instructions meant... Medication compliance, or "adherence," as it's called, is a big problem. Despite the fact that 87% of people in a recent survey said they thought prescription medicines were important to their health, only about half of them took their drugs as directed. People skip doses, take the wrong number of pills and take pills at the wrong time of day, among many other problems. Poor adherence results in up to $290 billion in medical expenses each year, according to NEHI, a health research organization...

And to avoid confusion over things such as dosages and when to take the medication, the recommendations say, keep those instructions separate and simple, using numbers instead of words when appropriate. With those guidelines in mind, perhaps fewer people would be confused by the instruction that started this column. The new and improved pill bottle would read, "Take 2 tablets by mouth in the morning and 2 tablets by mouth in the evening."

Link to Full Article: http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-medication-labels-20110314,0,7855116.st…