Reading Levels of Leaflets of Common Over-the-Counter Drugs in Ghana
William Kodom Gyasi, Lawrence Kwadwo Owusu-Ansah, Marian Amponsaah Frimpong · Open Journal of Applied Sciences · 2023
Health communication is critical component of effective health delivery. While there are studies on the readability Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) around the world, so far, there is only one Ghanaian study that explored the language of patient information leaflets for malaria. The present study explores the language of PILs of seven common ailments in Ghana. In all, 68 leaflets were purposely sampled for the study. Using SMOG and Flesch Kincaid grade level readability formulae, the researcher measured the readability of PILs and discovered that the readability of all the PILs was difficult to read except the dewormer leaflets that scored standard reading score. Further statistical analysis reveal that the lexical and syntactic complexity of the leaflets were not statistically different. Finally, an interview with 20 patients confirmed that the leaflets are difficult to read due to the complex words and long sentence structures. It is recommended that the PILs be revised to make the leaflets readable.