Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Drug patient information leaflets

2001; Wiley; Volume: 56; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1046/j.1365-2044.2001.01870-24.x

1365-2044

Anthony J. Brookes,

Intensive Care Unit Cognitive Disorders

I read with interest the letter concerning patient information leaflets (Paoloni & Arrowsmith. Anaesthesia 2000: 55: 911). I agree that it is inappropriate to provide information to patients that can do little apart from increasing their anxiety. I wonder how many patients would agree to being given morphine when the patient information leaflet states ‘poor breathing, coma and death may occur’ (Medeva) in the paragraph ‘are there any side-effects?’ If anxiety levels are now leaving the patient with a feeling of impending doom the final line in bold type is ‘You may want to read this leaflet again.’ Would you? How many other drugs mention death in their patient information leaflets and do we really want to spend part of our valuable pre-operative assessment time trying to assuage the fears of our already anxious patients that anaesthesia is not as dangerous as all these patient information leaflets would have them believe?