Misunderstanding Prescription Physician’s Oral Instructions in Patients with Low Back Pain

Medication errors and adverse drug events can bring about hospitalization, permanent injury, or death. Patients due to lack of adequate understanding of instruction may unintentionally misuse a prescribed medicine. The aims of the study were to examine whether patients with low back pain were correctly able to understand physician's instructions regarding drug use and also to identify influencing factors in patient's misunderstanding. The sample of the study included patients with low back pain who had been referred to five clinics in order to follow their treatment procedure. The patients completed a questionnaire to assess understanding of physician's instructions by the patients. Afterwards, physician provided them oral instructions on how they must use medications. Once the physician finished the oral instruction, he was asked patients to repeat whatever he said about the instructions. This procedure repeated frequently until the patients described correctly Instructions of the medications use. One hundred and five patients participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 57.5 (± 13.9) years. Thirty three patients were female (31.4%) and 75.2 percent were married. Almost 80% of the patients misunderstood the oral prescription instructions at first time of presentation instruction. Gender, educational level, back pain history and drug use history were risk factors for misunderstanding prescription medication oral instructions for patients. The study affirmed that patients with low back pain suffered from a poor understanding of oral instruction.