An Australian Co-Designed Template for Accessible Medicines Information for People With Intellectual Disability.
Mary Bushell, Teresa Winata, Donna Gillies and 1 others
PMID 42002726WHAT IT FOUND
Medicine leaflets only work, people with intellectual disability said, if they match the Easy Read documents they use: plain words, real photos not cartoons, a picture for every sentence.
They wanted their own medicine details filled in, and only common and serious side effects.
Key findings
01Participants wanted medicine leaflets to look and work the same as the Easy Read information they already get from other services: consistent fonts and layout, white space, one picture for every sentence, real photographs of real people instead of cartoons, and colour coding for warnings.
02Participants wanted the leaflet personalised with their own medicine name, dose, timing and review dates, plus blank space to write in local contacts, because the leaflets they were shown carried UK details that were no use to them.
03Participants wanted only common and serious side effects listed, with pictures and clear grouping, rather than a complete list that they said would cause worry and fatigue.
04Participants said accessible medicine information should be offered to everyone at the GP clinic or pharmacy rather than waiting to be asked, because many people do not know it exists.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Recruitment went through three advocacy organisations, so the 31 participants are likely to be more connected to disability services than people with intellectual disability in general. No demographic data were collected, so it is not possible to say who was represented. Attendance varied between groups: in some groups carers were present but did not take part, and in one group carers and people with intellectual disability both contributed, so the mix of voices was not the same in every group. The template was drafted around only two medicines, risperidone and mirtazapine. The authors say it may need adapting for the clinical and communication differences of other medicines. The leaflets were reviewed by participants but never formally tested, so there is no evidence yet that they improve understanding, adherence or safety. The authors list this as future work. What the paper reports is what participants said they wanted, not a measured improvement in how well people understand their medicines. The paper gives the preferred font size as 14 in its table and as 12 in the text, so anyone applying these design rules should check the size before printing. The leaflets are built around Australian product information, services and contact details, so the resources and the referral advice do not transfer directly to other countries.
Declared interests
The work was funded by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, an Australian government agency that regulates disability services. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The paper does not describe any role for the funder in designing the study or writing it up.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these leaflets as tools that have been shown to work. The study asked 31 people what they wanted and built the leaflets from their answers; nobody tested whether the finished leaflets improve understanding, medicine use or safety, and the authors say that is still to be done. Nor should the design rules be read as a universal standard, since everyone in the study was recruited through advocacy organisations and only risperidone and mirtazapine were used as examples.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →