This study aims to explore the vocabularies used on the labels of the Over-The-Counter (OTC) allergy medications for adults and their readability converted to consumer's grade levels.
Significance:
A national survey found 14% adults obtained below basic health literacy and they also perceived their overall health as poor. According to the FDA, 4-18% of adverse drug reactions occur because of misuse or overdose of OTC medications. Thus, our study signifies the necessity to possess pharmaceutical literacy among consumers.
Procedures:
The researchers identified three major brands of OTC allergy medications and obtained their labels. We then determined the reading level using both the SMOG readability formula and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level feature on Microsoft Word 2007. In addition, we used SPSS to calculate the frequency of vocabularies and determined the 10 most commonly used words.
Findings:
Within the realm of health literacy and communication, we define pharmaceutical literacy as the degree of understanding that a self-administering consumer has about their prescription or non-prescription medication. Our results show the 10 most commonly used words on the labels by frequency. In addition, the SMOG and Flesch-Kincaid readability scores ranged from 9.3 to 10.7 and 7.9 to 9.6 respectively, appearing above the average adult reading level.
Conclusions:
We concluded individuals should obtain certain level of pharmaceutical literacy and suggested future research to identify the necessary vocabularies for consumers to learn. Furthermore, we suggest drug manufacturers consider the reading level on OTC labels in order to decrease misuse.