Medication Adherence and the Role of Pictograms in Medication Counselling of Chronic Patients: a Review

• Main Authors: Piotr Merks (Author), Jameason Cameron (Author), Krzysztof Bilmin (Author), Damian Świeczkowski (Author), Tomira Chmielewska-Ignatowicz (Author), Tomasz Harężlak (Author), Katarzyna Białoszewska (Author), Katarina Fehir Sola (Author), Miłosz J Jaguszewski (Author), Regis Vaillancourt (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A., 2021-08-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

Pharmaceutical care requires a patient-centered approach, focusing on the ability of patients to understand drug-related information and follow the instructions delivered by pharmacists as well as other health-care providers included in the circle of care. With the goal of ensuring the prescribed use of medications, called medication adherence, health-care providers have to consider many risk factors such as geography (culture), social economic status, age, and low literacy that may predispose patients to non-adherence, and considerations have to be made for chronic patients living with life-long disease states. The aim of this review is to provide a balanced and comprehensive review outlining a number of different medication counselling and education approaches that have been used to try to improve medication adherence and health outcomes with the use of clear and concise graphic illustrations-called pictograms. By highlighting the current landscape of the general use and efficacy of pharmaceutical pictograms to aid in the knowledge and recall of drug-related information, as well as outlining specific medication adherence outcomes with pharmaceutical pictograms in chronic patients, the current review describes the need for health-care providers to move beyond the traditional didactic methods of oral and verbal communication with patients regarding medication-taking behavior.

Item Description

1663-9812
10.3389/fphar.2021.582200