Background and objectives: Rational Drug Use (RDU)
project has been established to solve drug-related
problems especially insufficient patients’ knowledge
on medication use. Auxiliary labels has been launched
to support all patients to get more access in drug
labels and increase knowledge of their medications.
Therefore, this study aimed to survey attitudes of
outpatients towards the use of auxiliary labels and to
assess factors related to the patients’ attitudes.
Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in
a community hospital and four health promoting
hospitals under the ministry of public health, Nakhon
Ratchasima province. The study enrolled patients at
the age of 18 and over who had received at least one
out of ten drugs including allopurinol, amlodipine,
colchicine, domperidone, enalapril, glipizide,
ibuprofen, paracetamol, paracetamol mixed with
orphenadrine, and simvastatin, and those had at least
one month of drug use history. The sample was
selected by purposive sampling in the total number
of 1,000 respondents (100 for each drug). All patients
received a questionnaire about the attitudes towards
using auxiliary labels consisting of 14 items. Data was
assessed using 5-point Likert scales and interpreted
into 3 levels of the patients’ attitudes towards using
auxiliary labels as poor, fair and good.
Results: Of the total 1000 patients, 51.8% were
females with an average age of 55.61 ± 12.86 years
old. The patients expressed their attitudes towards
use of auxiliary labels at a good level 35.5% (mean ± SD = 56.58 ± 3.40) and a fair level 64.5% (mean ±
SD = 43.34 ± 3.53). The patients strongly agreed with
the top 3 following statements about auxiliary labels:
“Auxiliary labels are reliable information sources”
(32.2%), “If you have any questions about drug use,
auxiliary labels will be the first option that you choose
to use” (30.3%), and “Auxiliary labels help you
remember the names of the drugs you received”
(26.9%). Patients strongly disagreed with the top 3
following statements about auxiliary labels: “There is
no need to have an auxiliary label for every drug”
(32.6%), “Auxiliary labels make you feel uncomfortable
to inform healthcare professionals when having side
effects” (28.2%), and “When reading auxiliary labels,
you want to stop using the medicines” (26.4%).
Regarding the multivariate analysis, the independent
factors related to better attitudes towards using
auxiliary labels including age (OR 0.450, p=0.005),
careers (OR 0.474, p=0.005), higher income (OR 6.187,
p=0.002) and number of drugs currently used (OR
0.177, p=0.002).
Conclusion: Patients had good attitudes towards
auxiliary labels and they were aware of the importance
of auxiliary labels. Therefore, strategies to increase
patients’ recognition about the importance of
auxiliary labels should be promoted. Also, auxiliary
labels in all drugs prescribed should be provided to
patients to increase knowledge of their medications.
Keywords
attitudes auxiliary labels drug labels outpatients