Banstola A
Introduction: Pictograms are pictorial representation of information about doses, medication, precautions, and warnings. They play a vital role in counseling patients by providing complete information about the medication in a visual form.
Objectives: To evaluate awareness about pictograms and their rational use in pharmacy undergraduates and to obtain their feedback regarding sessions conducted on this subject.
Methodology: In this study, 50 pharmaceutical pictograms developed by United States Pharmacopoeia Drug Information (USP- DI), were used and the study was conducted among 71 (56 male and 15 female) undergraduate students studying at the first, second, third, and fourth year of the Mallige College of Pharmacy, Bangalore, India. The study was divided into two sessions. In the first session, all the pictograms were shown to each student and their interpretation were noted. In the second session, seminar on the same pictograms was conducted among those students and their interpretations to the pictograms were re-recorded. Operational definition was set to assess the level of understanding of the pictograms as Completely Understood (CU), Partially Understood (PU) and Not Understood (NU). The feedback of the students on the training module was evaluated using a specially designed feedback form.
Results: Prior to the seminar, only 43% of pictogram was completely understood by the first year students whereas 49% of the same were understood by final year students. The levels of understanding of pictograms between second and third years were quite similar. After explanation majority of the pictograms (87%) were interpreted by final year students followed by third year (84%) of pictograms.
Conclusion: There is a low level of awareness on pictograms among pharmacy undergraduates. Present study suggests and reinforces an idea to introduce pictograms as a topic in curriculum of Pharmacy subjects. There is a strong need among the pharmacy professionals to learn this untouched and an important part of their profession.
