[Influence of the drug package information paper on compliance of neurological and psychiatric outpatients].

The influence of demographic parameter, the number of different drugs or the frequency of the single doses on the reliability of compliance was subject in different studies. The goal of this investigation was to examine the influence of the drug package information paper on the compliance of neurological-psychiatric patients. 951 patients of one quarter of a neurological-psychiatric practice were given a questionnaire, which examined the income behavior and the estimate of the meaning of the drug package information paper. 352 patients answered the questionnaires. Only 15.6 % refused it to answer the questionnaire. The remaining were not able to answer because of different reasons (dementia, aphasia, acute psychiatric disorders, foreign language origin, immobility, etc.). 98.1 % considered the drug package information paper to be important. Older patients and patients with lower education degree judged the drug package information paper to be too extensive. Only few patients (11.5 %) let the physician explain the drug package information paper. 86.3 % of the patients assumed the medication prescribed by the physician to be correct. 58.1 % of the patients however were not satisfied with the information by the physician. Patients with neuroses were particularly dissatisfied over the clearing-up by the physician (77.3 %). 73.3 % of the patients were deterred from taking in their medicines occasionally or frequently by the side effects described in the drug package information paper. 59.9 % of the patients would take the medicine, if the physician insisted on it. Independently of the influence of the drug package information paper 57.5 % of the patients forgot to take their medicines occasionally or frequently. Patients with epilepsies and M. Parkinson were most compliant. In summary the investigation showed that the clearing-up only by the drug package information paper in contrast to the clearing-up by the physician leads to more non-compliance.