The package insert for a medication provides important information about who, when and how often you should take the medication.
Not exactly irrelevant! Nevertheless, the instructions for use are often ignored – simply because many patients cannot cope with the cryptic instructions.
Ingrid Dänschel from the board of the German Association of General Practitioners confirms this to ‘Spiegel’: “The information leaflets in their current form often overwhelm patients.”
And that’s not just because of the small font size, but above all because of the language.
She attributes the complicated language to the manufacturers’ attempt to protect themselves legally.
The end result is an instruction leaflet that meets all the regulations from a legal perspective, but has little to do with user-friendliness.
