Enhanced Prescription Drug Label to Improve Patient Understanding and Use

September 25, 2014 updated by: Michael S. Wolf, Northwestern University

The overall objective of this study is to test the efficacy of an evidence-based, enhanced Rx container label design to improve patients' understanding of instructions for use.

The investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial (N=960) to evaluate the efficacy of the enhanced Rx container label to improve patients' understanding of actual prescribed medicines, compared to a standard label format. Patients with type II diabetes and/or hypertension at safety-net clinics affiliated with one central-fill pharmacy (Nova Scripts Central - NSC) receive their prescribed medicines from this location. Recruited subjects in this study will be randomly assigned to either intervention (enhanced Rx container label) or control (standard Rx label). All pill-form, regular dosing schedule medicines, including diabetes and hypertensive (i.e. ACE inhibitor) medicines associated with patients' treatment will be labeled according to study arm by the central-fill pharmacy. Study subjects will be interviewed at the time of dispensing the prescribed medicines at the clinic, again three months later (dispensing of refill), and finally nine months after baseline (dispensing of refill). Pharmacy refill data and medical record information - linked at these clinics - will be collected for exploratory analyses. Patients' ability to read and demonstrate Rx label instructions, including auxiliary warnings, will be the primary outcomes. Other exploratory outcome measures will also be measured, including 1) adverse effects associated with medication use defined by a) the rate of physician visits, b) the rate of emergency room visits, and c) the rate of hospitalizations and hospital admissions via emergency rooms for medication side effects (e.g. hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia); and 2) health outcome as measured by the change from baseline in hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and blood pressure measurements. Data from the actual use trial will be processed, reviewed, analyzed (in order of hypotheses), and reports prepared during the final months of this last phase of the study.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

850

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Illinois
      • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60611
        • Northwestern University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

30 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Diagnosis of Type II diabetes or hypertension in their medical chart.
  • 30 years or older.
  • Fluent in English.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Uncorrectable hearing or visual impairment.
  • Too ill to participate.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Enhanced Label
Subjects in this arm will receive their prescriptions labeled with our enhanced, patient-friendly label.
Other: Enhanced Label
A prescription drug label that has simplified text, more white space and overall is more patient-friendly.
No Intervention: Standard Label
Subjects in this arm will receive their prescriptions labeled with a standard label.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Understanding of prescription medication
Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Baseline, 3 months, 9 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Change in HbA1c or blood pressure readings
Time Frame: Baseline, 3 months, 9 months
Baseline, 3 months, 9 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Northwestern University

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Michael S. Wolf, PhD, MPH, Northwestern University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

November 1, 2012

Study Completion (Actual)

January 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 8, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 8, 2009

First Posted (Estimate)

September 9, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

September 29, 2014

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 25, 2014

Last Verified

September 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • NU-0923017

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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