The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7485 p51
19 January 2008

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• Industrial pharmacists (4)
• Community pharmacy
• Responsible pharmacist (2)
• Package design
• The profession (2)
• The Society (3)
• Registration (2)
• Statins
• Retirement (2)
• Onlooker
• Caption competition

Letters to the Editor

Package design

Why capitals?

From Mr D. H. Evans, MRPharmS

I am left somewhat confused by the article on the “Design for a safer dispensing process” (PJ, 8 December 2007, pp644–5). David Cousins is quoted as saying that the use of capitals will “make reading labels difficult”. I would agree with this view and indeed it is supported by the Plain English Campaign.

The British Dyslexia Association also suggests that adopting some simple strategies can help aid dyslexic people to read. One of their suggestions is: “Where possible use lower-case letters rather than capitals. Using capital letters for emphasis can make text harder to read”.

Why then are the quantity and frequency words on all the pictured labels in the article capitalised? Given that they are the most important words on the label from the patient’s perspective surely the labels should read “Take one tablet three times a day”, etc.

David Evans
Ipswich, Suffolk

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