Medicine labels unclear

Writing messages that are effective for all your readers is not as easy as it may first seem. New research shows that patients may be risking their health because warning labels on medications are not clear enough.

The researchers, led by Professor Theo Raynor at the University of Leeds, found that phrases like ‘may cause drowsiness’ weren’t fully understood. After testing such typical phrases on their 200 volunteers, they concluded that many of them were too vague to be effective.

An instruction such as ‘avoid alcohol’ probably seemed unambiguous to the person who wrote it. But the scientists found that many patients thought this meant merely ‘reduce alcohol’. After presenting the participants with rewritten alternatives, the team deemed that only the very specific ‘do not drink alcohol while taking this medicine’ left no room for misinterpretation.

The results feature in a report published in the British National Formulary, which advises doctors, nurses and pharmacists. This could mean there will soon be increased clarity where it is obviously sorely needed. And perhaps that we should all re-examine our own writing to ensure the message we write has the best chance of being the message our readers receive.

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Author: Catie Holdridge

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Catie joined Emphasis with an English literature and creative writing degree and a keen interest in what makes language work. Having researched, written, commissioned and edited dozens of articles for the Emphasis blog, she now knows more about the intricacies of effective professional writing than she ever thought possible.

She produced and co-wrote our online training programme, The Complete Business Writer, and these days oversees all the Emphasis marketing efforts. And she keeps office repartee at a suitably literary level.