Useful information

When you want to know the right information about your medicine, there’s the “attached document” and “Medication Guide for Patients”

2018/11/01

When giving you your medicine at a pharmacy, we will give you “medication information” which includes items such as the drug’s name, photo, instructions for taking, efficacy and indications, and side effects of the medicine. Although we will explain the medicine over the counter at the time of pick-up, after you return home you may sometimes get confused and wonder “How many times a day should I take it?” For that reason, we give it to you with the medication information paper.

However, there may be a situation when you want to know more about the medicine, or have lost the medication information paper….
In that case, what you can do then is to do a search on the internet with a smartphone or your personal computer. By inputting the name of the medicine found on the package or back side of the medicine, you can easily obtain a lot of information.
However, sometimes there is too much information on the internet. Sometimes you don’t know what is relevant, and are overloaded with assorted information.
In that case, I would like you to know that there is also an “attached document”.

 What is an “attached document”? 

An “attached document” is an official document created by a manufacturer / distributor of pharmaceutical products. It contains basic information about the medicine; specifically, regarding the following items.

  • Contraindications
    → Information regarding “Do not administer to these patients”
  • Effects and indications
  • Dosage / Dose
  • Usage notes
    → Information such as “use caution in administering to these patients”, “medicines that require caution when used in combination” “side effects” “regarding administration to the elderly, pregnant women, children”
  • Clinical results, etc.

It’s written in order of importance.
As the name “attached document” indicates, it’s attached to the medicine. Since it’s also published on the Internet, you can obtain information by searching for ‘”’medicine name’ attached document.”’
However, as you can see, it’s a document created for doctors, pharmacists, and other medical professionals, so it may be slightly difficult for the general public to understand.

What is a “Patient-Drug Guide”? 

So, for general usage, there are clarifications that make the contents of the package easier to understand.
That’s the “Medication Guide for Patients”. You can view it at the following site:

◎ Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency “Medication Guide for Patients”
http://www.pmda.go.jp/safety/info-services/drugs/items-information/guide-for-patients/0001.html

When you search on this site by the name of a medicine to find information about that medicine, you will find “effect of medicine”, “what to check before using medicine”, “how to use medicine”, “precautions when using medicine”, “shape of medicine”, for example. You can obtain information that is easy for patients to understand.. .

Both “Attachment” and “Medication Guide for Patients” are useful information sources to know.
Please use them when you want to know the correct information about medicine. And if you have any symptoms or side effects you are concerned about, notify your doctor or pharmacist.