Webster, R.K. orcid.org/0000-0002-5136-1098, Weinman, J. and Rubin, G.J. (2017) How does the side-effect information in patient information leaflets influence peoples’ side-effect expectations? A cross-sectional national survey of 18- to 65-year-olds in England. Health Expectations, 20 (6). pp. 1411-1420. ISSN 1369-6513
Abstract
Objectives
To establish how the terms recommended by the European Commission to describe side‐effect risk in patient information leaflets (PILs) influences expectations of side‐effects and to identify factors associated with these side‐effect expectations.
Design
A cross‐sectional online survey was carried out by a market research company.
Setting
Data were collected in England between 18th March and 1st April 2016.
Participants
A total of 1003 adults aged between 18 and 65. Main outcome measures: Self‐reported expectation that the described side‐effects would affect participants if they took the medicine, measured on a likelihood scale from 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (very likely).
Results
Participants formed high expectations of side‐effects for “very common” and “common” side‐effects, with 51.9% and 45.0% of participants rating these as “very likely” or “likely” to happen to them, respectively. This fell to 8.1% for “uncommon,” 5.8% for “rare” and 4.1% for “very rare.” For each descriptor, higher expectations of side‐effects were more associated with women or being from an ethnic minority, or having less education, a household illness, high perceived sensitivity to medicines or negative beliefs about medicines.
Discussion
The current use of verbal descriptors to communicate side‐effect risk in PILs leads to high side‐effect expectations. These expectations could contribute to nocebo‐induced medication side‐effects experienced by patients. Additional work is required to identify ways to improve the way risk information is conveyed in PILs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | descriptors; expectations; patient information leaflets; risk; side effects |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 16 Apr 2020 14:08 |
Last Modified: | 17 Apr 2020 02:35 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/hex.12584 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:159100 |