Investigating the Syntactic Structures of Patient Information Leaflets

The majority of the Malaysian people consider Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) their medications difficult to read and understand because linguistic complexity. Clear comprehensive PILs will help users/readers gain benefits these PILs. Poor complex cause lack adherence being used. current study aims first, investigate use command, passive voice negation currently used in PILs, frequent occurrence effect on readers’ comprehension. A total 10 leaflets most common disease Malaysia, which is diabetes, were tested. analysis was done by applying statistical descriptive show frequency percentage each syntactic structures. Second, a comprehension questionnaire carried out with 210 participants evaluate reading based two texts. original text consists sentences taken from revised text, ones. Based results, command scored highest mean value than negation. Additionally, results conducting showed that chose for negation, respectively. These revealed easier text. In conclusion, complexity prevent utilizing medical information provided