Abstract:
ABSTRACT
Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) are key communication tools in healthcare
delivery. Even though readable PILs can enhance effective communication
between pharmaceutical companies and the patients who use their products,
there are limited number of studies on the readability and comprehensibility of
PILs in Ghana. This study investigated the readability and comprehensibility of
PILs of over-the-counter drugs for seven common illnesses in Ghana. Using
non-experimental descriptive design, the researcher conveniently selected 68
PILs and measured their readability using SMOG and Flesch Kincaid Grade
Level readability metrices. The researcher measured the lexical density and
syntactic complexity of the selected leaflets using Coh-Metrix. From the scores
of the readability formulae, the researcher discovered that the PILs were
difficult to read and readers required at least fourteen years of formal education
in order to find the leaflets comprehensible. Also, the lexical density and
syntactic complexity of the selected leaflets were beyond average, suggesting
that readers would have difficulty reading and understanding the leaflets.
Moreover, there were no statistically significant differences among the PILS in
terms of lexical density and syntactic complexity, suggesting that all the leaflets
were of similar difficulty. Also, the researcher discovered through an interview
with twenty consumers of these over-the-counter drugs that they found the
leaflets difficult to read due to the unfamiliar words used in the leaflets. There
is the need for information leaflets to be written at an easy-to-read level so that
users of the leaflets can read and understand them
