Fewer than half of Canadian pharmacies follow prescription-labeling guidelines created to make reading dosage instructions easier, according to a recent study published in the Canadian Pharmacist Journal.
Over one million patients in the U.S. experience adverse drug effects, even after using the instructions on the label. In order to combat this, the study mentions US Pharmacopeia standards, which are rules designed to ensure labels are intelligible. The standards include organizing label information in a way that helps patients understand it, and include minimum font sizes to improve legibility.
Coming up, the USP has a proposal in the works for new standards that will address pharmacy labels for visually impaired patients.
