JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Electronic labelling (e-labelling) is an emerging trend of disseminating legally approved medicinal product information in a dynamic format tailored to the individual needs of the patients and healthcare professionals. While patient’s perceptions towards e-labelling in the developed countries were generally positive, existing data representing patients stem from studies conducted among the hospital pharmacists, customers visiting community pharmacies who may not be frequent users of medications, and publics receiving the Covid-19 vaccines.

Objective:

This study aimed to assess e-labelling acceptance, preferences and perception towards the benefits and challenges with its implementation in Malaysia among hospital ambulatory care patients.

Methods:

A cross-sectional survey using self-administered questionnaires was conducted at the outpatient pharmacy department of a quaternary hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from May to June 2023. Patients aged 18 years and above were recruited via stratified sampling method to ensure age-related medication usage representativeness. Univariate and multivariate binomial logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of e-labelling acceptance.

Results:

Of 462 patients approached, 387 (83%) participated in the survey. Of these participants, 283 (73%) accepted e-labelling. Perceived benefits of better understanding of medication (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR): 8.02, 95% Confidence Interval (95% CI): 2.80-22.97, P< .001), environment protection (AOR: 7.24, 95% CI: 3.00-17.51, P< .001), flexibility in information retrieval (AOR: 2.66, 95% CI: 1.11-6.35, P= .03), Chinese ethnicity compared to Malay (AOR: 0.28, 95% CI: 0.13-0.60, P= .005), and perceived lack self-efficacy in browsing electronic leaflets (AOR: 0.25, 95% CI: 0.11-0.56, P< .001) were significant predictors of e-labelling acceptance. Majority of the participants (78%) preferred to access electronic leaflets through government websites, nevertheless 57% desired printed leaflets to be made available upon request.

Conclusions:

The acceptance rate to e-labelling for medicinal products information among hospital ambulatory care patients was moderately high. Future strategies to address patient’s concerns regarding potential cybersecurity issues, providing help desk to assist with arising questions, and raise public awareness by highlighting the advantages of e-labelling could facilitate better patients access to medicinal product information, raise health literacy, whilst positively impacting the sustainable development of environment.