The primary source of patient drug information has traditionally been the point of care: the patient's physician and pharmacist. Patient education materials prepared by manufacturers and information services, however, are a useful adjunct.
One of the 3 leaflets on cisapride surveyed by Sana Sukkari and Larry Sasich contained content provided by First DataBank, a leading US provider of drug data for pharmacy and hospital information systems. We must point out that commercial content providers — First DataBank included — do not “produce” leaflets for patients. Instead, we license drug information to system developers and health care organizations for use by their customers — physicians and pharmacists — in educating their patients. Organizations that acquire our data can, at their discretion, exclude any information that they consider not relevant to or practical for their application. (First DataBank does not recommend this practice.) For example, they might not include some sections of our knowledge base if their pharmacy system automatically screens patient data for drug interactions because the caregiver can verbally counsel patients if there are any risks in using a particular drug.
Sukkari and Sasich evaluated the 3 leaflets on whether they covered 5 types of risk information on cisapride. Some of the data provided by First DataBank appear to have been deleted by the system developer or customer: our database did in fact contain most of the information sought by the authors.
We question the validity of evaluating patient information leaflets on the basis of an exhaustive list of risks. In our view, a major goal of drug information leaflets is to encourage patient compliance, which may be better achieved by a balanced presentation of the risks and the benefits of proper usage. We do agree with the authors, however, on the need for standards in patient information materials. First DataBank has been working toward full compliance with the FDA's Keystone Action Plan in all of its patient education materials.