Objectives: To determine parental understanding of directions on common pediatric prescription pharmacy labels and to identify enablers and barriers that affect interpretation of these labels.
Methods: Prospective qualitative descriptive study (July to August 2020) of 20 parents in post-surgical wards at a single Australian tertiary pediatric center.
Results: Four key themes emerged through inductive analysis of the interview transcripts: 1) the addition of specific directions, such as administration with/without food and treatment course duration were perceived to be beneficial; 2) explicit phrasing of dosing intervals and times were more easily interpreted; 3) the use of simpler and common terminology enhanced understanding of the directions; and 4) presentation of multiple-step directions (e.g. tapering regimens) in a simplified and more organized manner was identified as an enabler and was thought to reduce confusion.
Conclusion: Differences in wording and presentation of pediatric prescription medication label directions led to variable interpretation by parents.
Practise implications: Therefore, there is a need for guidelines to standardize the wording of prescription medication advice labels. Findings from this study can be used to achieve this goal.
Keywords: children; health literacy; parents; pediatrics, pharmacy labels, directions for use, medication labels; qualitative.
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