Capsule Commentary on Wolf et al., A Patient-Centered Prescription Drug Label to Promote Appropriate Medication Use and Adherence

Excerpt

This randomized, unblinded pragmatic trial1 tested the effectiveness of changing prescription drug labels from a current standard (e.g., ‘take 1 tablet twice daily’) to a “Universal Medication Schedule” (UMS) that displays specific times of day (e.g., morning, noon, evening, bedtime) when prescriptions should be taken, and is formatted in a patient-friendly way. Participants were 845 type 2 diabetes patients at safety net clinics currently taking two or more oral medications and speaking English or Spanish. Results were that patients receiving UMS-labelled drugs were more likely to be able to demonstrate proper use of medications to investigators at 9 months, though not at 3 months, with no statistically significant overall effects on adherence rates measured either by self-report or pill count. While there was suggestive evidence of stronger effects in vulnerable patient subgroups (those with more frequent doses, polypharmacy, or limited literacy skills), results were not consistently significant across outcome measures. …