Assessment of Awareness and Knowledge About Package Inserts Amongst Medical Students: A Questionnaire Based Study

A package insert or prescribing information (in Europe, Patient information leaflet for human medicines or Package Leaflet for veterinary medicines) is a document provided along with a prescription medication to provide additional information about that drug.In developing countries , the package insert is considered an important source of drug information for health care providers as well, because of limited ability to access up-to-date information about drugs.The quality and quantity of information available in the package insert has been shown to influence patient's compliance and satisfaction.This study was undertaken to assess the knowledge about package inserts amongst medical students.A prevalidated questionnaire based study was conducted amongst 100 medical students.It was observed that significantly large number of student (42%) do not even read package inserts.18% looked for indications,19% looked for contraindications, 21% looked for adverse effects and 23% opinioned that it should be in mother tongue.It is a good idea to review the need of more awareness amongst the students and certain changes in the package inserts.