Survey of outpatients’ use and needs of patient medicine information leaflets in Thailand

Background Patient information leaflets are important sources of medicine information. Regulations of patient information leaflet provision varies among country. Little is known regarding patients’ behavior and expectation on use of patient information leaflets. Objectives To explore patients’ use of either package inserts or patient information leaflets and to survey patients’ expectations and needs on use of patient information leaflets and their associated factors. Setting Two university hospitals in Thailand. Methods Cross-sectional study using self-administered questionnaires distributed to outpatients over a 3-month period. Participants were selected through systematic random sampling. Logistic regression was used for data analysis. Main outcome measure Patient use of medicine information. Visual Analogue Scale scores for patient needs and their expectation of knowledge gains from using patient information leaflets. Results The response rate was 77.0%. Most respondents had received package inserts (91.3%) with 59.4% reporting that they sometimes read them. While most respondents had not previously known about patient information leaflets (75.9%), 97.3% reported that patient information leaflets would be useful. Respondents scored their needs and expected knowledge gains after reading patient information leaflets as 9.68 ± 0.97 and 9.64 ± 0.99, respectively. Previous experience with package inserts was associated with increased patient need scores ( p = 0.002) and higher expected knowledge gains from use of patient information leaflets ( p = 0.037). In addition, patients who had not previously known about patient information leaflets had higher expectations of knowledge gains ( p = 0.016). Conclusion Overall, patients showed good behavior on reading package inserts. Although many patients were not previously aware of patient information leaflets, they realized the importance. Hence, patient information leaflets should be developed and provided to Thai patients.