Do Spanish- Speaking Latino Parents Understand Written Medication Instructions?

Investigators from Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, New York approached 8 local pharmacies and verified that the standard procedure when filling medication prescriptions for a child whose mother speaks only Spanish is to write the prescription label in English and provide the corresponding drug information sheet (DIS) written in Spanish. To determine how well Spanish-speaking Latino parents with limited English proficiency understand such written medication instructions, the investigators conducted a cross-sectional survey of Latino parents with children aged 5 years or younger attending 2 pediatric clinics in the Bronx, New York. A bilingual investigator approached every parent in the waiting rooms for 10 consecutive days. Parents age 18 or older who were identified as most comfortable speaking in Spanish or …