Use of Pictogram-Enhanced Medication Education to Improve Patient Knowledge

Abstract

Approximately 90 million Americans are affected by low health literacy, impacting their ability to understand the medication information needed to self-administer these medications in the outpatient setting. Verbal and text instruction that includes pictograms has been shown to improve recall and comprehension of medication information among individuals with low health literacy and those with adequate health literacy. The purpose of this project was to create a pictogram-enhanced medication education tool (PEMET) that would increase the medication knowledge of participants in a simulated clinical setting. Ten participants were recruited through the University of Arizona Telehealth Learning Center (TLC). They took part in a group Zoom education session where a PEMET was used to educate them about three specific medications. Pre- and post-education surveys were completed through Qualtrics to assess the confidence level in taking these medications, the usefulness of the PEMET, and the ability to utilize PEMET components when answering medication-specific questions. Overall, PEMET use showed a statistically insignificant medium effect in increasing participants’ reported confidence to take these medications compared. All participants indicated they would use a PEMET if it were provided. When asked to recall safety information about the individual medications, every participant used at least one component of the PEMET (text, pictures, or both) with no correlation between demographic data and which PEMET component was used. These outcomes indicate that a PEMET could be useful to a wide variety of patients; however, more research is needed to confirm medication knowledge improvement and improve the quality and usage of PEMET components.