The Delhi Pharmaceutical Trust (DPT) under the initiative Consumer Awareness for Safe Use of Medicines (iCASUM) has embarked on a six-week project to supply brown envelopes printed with information on right use of medicines. These 3,00,000 envelopes will be supplied to 30 pharmacy retail outlets in Nodia and parts of Delhi.

The efforts came about after repeated requests from consumers who indicated the need to provide brown envelopes with dos and don’ts message printed in Hindi to create an awareness on the right use of medicines.

“There are several shortcomings about use of medicines which are prescribed by the doctors. Although the doctors make efforts to provide information, yet it is vital for the pharmacists at the retail outlets to indicate more information. Based on several consumer studies the Trust developed 8 messages as desired by the consumers. These information is presented in easy comprehensible manner and printed on the envelopes in Hindi. We approached 30 pharmacists who readily consented to participate in the project who will dispense the drugs in these envelopes,” said Ashish Dasgupta, Trustee of the DPT.

Some of the earlier studies indicated the role of the pharmacists in the retail outlets to provide information on medicines while dispensing and the benefit of the same to improve medication outcomes and compliance. Many educated consumers do not know or obtain complete information about medication dosage, consumption, storage among others. At times they also discontinued the medication midway which stalled completion of the treatment course. This is seen a critical issue especially for an antibiotic therapy which leads to serious drug resistance conditions. Moreover, there is also a combination therapy adopted by many consumers or patients where allopathy drugs are taken along with either Ayurveda or Homoeopathy medicines indiscriminately, noted the Trustee.

“In a bid to ensure good medication practices, we took on the onus to take up this supply of brown envelopes with printed messages as a pilot project to evaluate the use of printed messages on envelopes that are used to pack and handover the medicines to customers and patients. In this project that would be run for 6 weeks over 3,00,000 envelopes would be handed over with printed messages. It is planned to undertake a post usage impact study through consumer feedback process” said Dr DBA Narayana, Managing Trustee, DPT.

“We are keen volunteer for this project because it provides the much needed exposure to good medication practices. Therefore we would distribute, collect names and contact details of consumers besides coordinate with the pharmacy retail outlets for this project” stated students from the Department of Pharmacy, Amity University, Noida.