Pharmaceutical Pictograms: an opportunity for Health Literacy?

Introduction: Instructional material for the use of medicines is often unreadable by the patient, especially if he or she is poorly literate in Health. This alleviates the need for alternatives to the traditional leaflets. The aim of this work was to review the available evidence on the pictograms as a tool leading to the rational use of medicines. Method: A search was carried out for articles that considered studies of the communicative efficacy of pharmaceutical pictograms from Scopus, Web of Science and Medline through PubMed. Results: 24 studies were identified with the inclusion criteria applied. 10 of the 12 randomized controlled studies obtained results favorable to the inclusion of pictograms. Cross-sectional studies explored the importance of cultural or educational context. All longitudinal studies obtained positive results after follow-up, which could be explained by prior knowledge. Conclusions: Pictograms are a simple, economical tool with a high potential to improve the use of medication.