Effects of pharmacists’ communication strategies and patients’ numeracy skills on willingness to take medication

Abstract

Objective This study investigated whether providing numerical adverse event information and social norm nudging in medication counselling enhances patients’ willingness to take medication differently, depending on their numeracy skills. Methods An online survey was conducted with 554 Japanese adults who were randomly assigned to one of four medication counselling scenarios, combining numerical and non-numerical adverse event information with or without a social norm nudge. After viewing counselling videos on a hypothetical diabetes drug, participants’ willingness to take the medication and subjective numeracy skills were assessed. Key findings The results indicated that numerical adverse event information significantly improved medication willingness among more numerate participants, but had no significant effect on less numerate participants. In contrast, social norm nudging was more effective for less numerate individuals, whereas it had no significant effect on more numerate participants. Conclusions The findings underscore the importance of tailoring counselling strategies to patients’ numeracy levels to optimize decision-making and improve adherence. As a practical implication, the findings suggest that brief numeracy screening before medication counselling may enable pharmacists to optimize their communication strategies. Moreover, the findings offer a foundation for pharmacists to implement numeracy-based communication strategies in clinical counselling to enhance patient-centred communication.