PICTOGRAM-BASED INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE MEDICATION ERRORS: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Pharmaceutical care necessitates a patient-centered approach, emphasizing patients' capacity to comprehend drug-related information and adhere to directions given by pharmacists and other medical professionals in the circle of care. Health-care professionals must take into account a variety of risk factors, including geography (culture), social economic status, age, and low literacy, which may predispose patients to non-adherence. Additionally, chronic patients with lifelong disease states must be taken into account in order to ensure the prescribed use of medications, or medication adherence. This review's objective is to present a fair and thorough analysis of various medication counseling and education strategies that have been employed in an effort to enhance medication adherence and health outcomes through the use of succinct and understandable graphic representations, or pictograms. The current review describes the need for health-care providers to go beyond the conventional didactic methods of oral and verbal communication with patients regarding medication-taking behavior by highlighting the current landscape of the general use and efficacy of pharmaceutical pictograms to aid in the knowledge and recall of drug-related information as well as outlining specific medication adherence outcomes with pharmaceutical pictograms in chronic patients.