著者

飯久保 尚 青柳 吉博 浅田 和広 後藤 伸之 近澤 洋平 多田 公揚 柳瀬 秀明 若林 進

出版者

Japanese Society of Drug Informatics

雑誌

医薬品情報学 (ISSN:13451464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.19, no.4, pp.149-157, 2018 (Released:2018-03-21)

参考文献数

7

被引用文献数

1

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Objectives: Many pharmaceutical companies provide information on prescription drugs on their websites.  These websites are popular search tools for drug information for many reasons, including the availability of information at all times.  However, there are various sources of confusion for users, such as the website content differing between companies.  Therefore, to improve the usability of websites created by pharmaceutical companies, we investigated the expectations and perceptions of website users of current websites and presented our results to website users and developers.Design: A questionnaire survey.Methods: Website users were surveyed using a questionnaire developed based on data obtained from a preliminary survey of drug information pharmacists registered at the Japanese Society of Drug Informatics.  Then, using data from the user survey, we conducted a survey of website developers for pharmaceutical companies.Results: When asked what makes the websites of pharmaceutical companies excellent, 55.7% of users responded “a website filled with information.”  When asked how the website of pharmaceutical companies should be structured, the most common answer was “searchability and visibility” in responses in free-description format (25.3%) and was “inter-company consistency regarding types of drug information available as well as the process required for obtaining drug information” for responses in multiple-choice format (88.6%).  When asked whether users were unable to obtain drug information when needed because user registration was required, 87.3% of the users replied affirmatively, although 47.1% responded that some content should require user registration.  Of website developers, 46.9% collected and analyzed information about users’ website use.  They also hoped to identify the users’ needs.Discussion: The findings suggest that the usability of websites could be improved by providing opportunities for website users and developers to exchange opinions and by standardizing the content of pharmaceutical company websites, including what information should require user registration.