Evaluating attitudes of pharmacy students toward pharmaceutical side effect pictograms: Ankara sample

Abstract

Pictograms are graphic symbols that facilitate international communications and express objects and the meaning of these objects. Using pictograms in health is essential to informing patients, especially in cases such as illiteracy, language problems, and multiple drugs. Pharmaceutical pictograms are thought to be helpful not only for pharmacists but also for patients. In this regard, in this study, pharmacy faculty students’ attitudes towards side effect pictograms are evaluated via the “Drug side effect pictogram attitude scale.” As a result of exploratory factor analysis, a one-dimensional structure was obtained in parallel with the original scale with 0.906 Cronbach’s alpha value. The mean values of the items in the scale were found above 3.70, which shows that students have positive attitudes toward side effect pictograms. As a result, it is thought that pharmaceutical pictograms should be included more in pharmacy education to transform the positive attitudes of pharmacy faculty students towards pictograms into the behavior of using pictograms in patient counseling.