Consumer confusion between prescription drug precautions and side effects.

This was an exploratory study nested within a larger project, and the measures were not created specifically to assess precaution recall or interpretation. The interpretation analysis included only 134 of 873 participants because precaution recall was low. Participants who did not mention a precaution could have missed it, recalled it but not reported it, or correctly understood it, so the study cannot estimate confusion in all consumers. Illness population proportions are not directly comparable because the seasonal allergies website had multiple precautions. The websites were fictitious and did not test real drugs or real brand-name sites. The study measured perceived risk, not actual behavior such as refusing medication or failing to tell a provider about a condition. One precaution about angioedema lacked the reason for telling the doctor, which may have affected interpretation. The absence of demographic predictors may reflect limited power or imprecise measurement.

This work was supported by the National Cancer Institute under grant number R01 CA172851. The supplied text does not state other conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that most consumers confuse precautions and side effects. Only 134 of 873 participants mentioned a precaution, and the misinterpretation percentages apply to those 134, not to all consumers.