Abstract
A heat-sealing process is commonly used for the packaging of tablets and capsules. However, it can sometimes be very difficult for patients who have impaired vision or hand mobility disorders to remove medicines from such packages. These difficulties could result in reducing their drug compliance.
To assess this situation, we conducted a multi-center study on the ease of opening heat-sealed packages, whose subjects were 46 patients aged over 60 with chronic diseases and 27 healthy volunteers aged over 22. On comparing medicines containing the same active ingredient in this respect, both patients and healthy volunteers preferred Bayaspirin® 100mg to Bufferin® 81mg tablets, Prednisolone® “Takeda” 5mg to Predonine® 5mg tablets, and Onealfa® 0.5μg tablets to Alfarol®0.25μg capsules. When drugs in the same category and having the same indication were compared, the order of ease ofopening was Lochol® 20mg, Mevalotin® 10mg, Lipovas® 5mg and then Lipitor® 10mg, and the healthy volunteers foundit more difficult to remove Lipovas® 5mg from its package than the other 3 HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. For H2-blockers, both patients and healthy volunteers found Asinon capsules 150mg the easiest to remove from the package and Zantac® tablets the most difficult.
By reflecting these results in the medication plans of individual patients it would be possible to improve their drug compliance.
