Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #101470

Rebecca J. W. Cline, PhD¹, Melissa C. Morris, MPH², S. Camille Broadway, MAMC³, and Robert M. Weiler, PhD². (1) Communication and Behavioral Oncology, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute/Wayne State University, Hudson Webber Cancer Research Center, Rm. 540, 4100 John R, Detroit, MI 48201, (2) Department of Health Education and Behavior, University of Florida, P.O. Box 118210, 5 FLG, Gainesville, FL 32611-8210, 352-392-0583, mcmorris@ufl.edu, (3) College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, P.O. Box 118400, Graduate Division (G040 Weimer Hall), Gainesville, FL 32611-8400

Purpose: This investigation focused on communication and information-seeking issues related to prescription drug use in health textbooks. Significance: Students represent the major consumers of health education in the U.S. Textbooks' failure to address important topics yields a population missing important prescription drug use communication and information-seeking skills. Methods: All middle-school and high-school health textbooks (n = 24) were analyzed. We reviewed research, educational materials, and 25% of the textbook sample in developing a coding system of 126 topics organized within 14 categories. The unit of analysis was a sentence related to prescription drugs. Two coders assessed 8,641 sentences. Inter-rater (87.2%) and intra-rater reliabilities (93.8% and 90.4%) were calculated. Findings: Prescription drug-related communication and information-seeking topics accounted for about 5% of prescription drug content: what to tell providers (0.4%), what to know/ask providers (1.5%), pharmacy-related interaction (1.6%), information sources (1.2%), and nontraditional information sources (0.4). Topics ignored entirely included: telling a doctor about OTC taking, pregnancy, breastfeeding, CAM use, and memory impairment; asking about a prescribed drug's benefits, risks associated with samples; checking the drug name at the pharmacy, checking the product insert; physicians, nurses, and the Internet (credible sites) as information sources; and the Internet, mass media and friends as non-traditional (potentially unreliable) information sources. Conclusion: If the public health system relies on school-based education for consumers to learn about communicating with providers and seeking information about prescription drugs from reliable sources, consumers are likely to be under-informed and at risk to problems associated with prescription drug use.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this session, the participant will (
• be able to identify the communication and information-seeking topics and categories about prescription drug use about which consumers need to be educated, (
• be able to identify categories and topics of information missing from health education textbooks, (
• understand the significant role played by textbooks in health education and the importance of topics being “absent from school” textbooks.

Keywords: Adolescent Health, Prescription Drug Use Patterns

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation