Pharmaceutical pictograms for low-literate medication users

Patients’ understanding of how to use their therapy is a key determinant of good medication adherence. Low-literate medication users, who have difficulty reading, are at higher risk to misunderstand information about their therapy and to experience negative health outcomes compared to patients with higher reading levels.This thesis describes the development of visual aids, pictograms, to support written drug information for low-literate medication users, with repeated consultative/participative involvement of the target group.The pre-design phase showed that low-literate people experience drug leaflets as discouraging to use and that pictograms can make information look more appealing and easier to find, read and understand.This phase was followed by an iterative design, evaluation and redesign process using mixed-methods. Finally, the pictograms were tested in the context of easy-to-read drug leaflets with antihypertensive medication users.In addition to the resulting grammatical system of pharmaceutical pictograms, the thesis presents recommendations for the design of informative images for low-literate patients as well as an evaluation of end-user involvement in the design of pharmaceutical pictograms.The study shows that it is essential to provide low-literate medication users with suitable, printed drug information and that the use of pictograms can empower this target group.LUMC / Geneeskund