Project urges CMI revamp
August 12, 2010
ONLY half of pharmacy patients
want printed Consumer Medicines
Information (CMI) for their
medicines, according to the results
of a two year study led by the
University of Sydney.
The study found that 44% of
those surveyed indicated that they
preferred verbal counselling rather
than written information.
69% of study participants had
received a CMI in the six months
prior to the survey, with 38% having
taken a CMI in the month before
participation, and about half of
those given CMIs were provided the
leaflet directly by a pharmacist.
According to the researchers,
despite the fact that more
consumers are aware of CMIs than
they were five years ago, there are
a number of improvements that
can be made to leaflets to increase
readability and useability.
Designed to look into CMI
effectiveness as well as to develop
alternative CMI formats, the study
found that ‘Limited time and CMI
awareness, consumers’
understanding of the information,
and overall poor perceptions of
CMI, were “key barriers to provision
and use”.
Conducted under the Fourth
Community Pharmacy Agreement,
the study also found that
“increased
consumer awareness and demand
for CMI as well as, increased
consultation time and the
availability of more comprehensible
CMI and summary CMI were key
facilitators to increased CMI use”.
As a result of the study, the
researchers developed several new
CMI formats utilising information
design, medicine info and
functional linguistics.
Performance tests of the new
designs in select community
pharmacies found that they were
better received than the current
CMI formats, with pharmacists
reporting they found the new CMIs
informative and were more likely to
counsel patients to read them.
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