Patient Information Leaflet



Patient Information Leaflet

Overview of the leaflet

Description

Patient information leaflets (PILs) are leaflets containing specific information about medical conditions, doses, side effects that packed with medicines to give the user information about the product. PIL is the European version of the Package insert. The PIL is written by the manufacturing pharmaceutical company and is a patient friendly version of the Summary of Product Characteristics. All licenced medicines need to carry such a leaflet.

Aims And Objectives

The X-PIL service, launched in the UK in November 2005, aimed to replicate these leaflets in more accessible formats, including Braille, large print and on CD-ROM. It is a venture by the Royal National Institute of the Blind, the National Library for the Blind and Datapharm Communications. The Patient Information Quality Unit is part of the Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines (VRMM) Division[1]. The Unit is responsible for policy and regulation of all types of product information. Information on how a medicine should be used is provided to doctors, pharmacists and nurses in the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC). Information to patients or consumers is provided on the label and, more recently, by patient information leaflets (PILs) - unless all the necessary information can be included on the label. All medicines in the UK have labels and/or PILs approved in line with Title V of Council Directive 2001/83/EC. Every patient should be given a patient information leaflet with each medicine regardless of whether these are purchased over the counter, supplied on prescription or administered by a health professional.

Age/Gender Participant

The average ages of the participants are between18 to 35 years. 68% of the participants in this research were between 20 and 28 years old. For patients that purchase their medication from retail outlets, patient information represents the only advice the patients receive on how to ...