Pre-systematic review on software tools to evaluate package inserts of medicines as prescription information

Information on medical prescription, such as the one included in package leaflets of medicines (PLs) should benefit from Information Technology (IT) management resources. Objectives: to identify and evaluate studies describing prescription information, and software capable of analyzing, processing, extracting, or simplifying the information included in PLs. Methods: PRISMA checklist was applied, using as keywords: (“package inserts” or “package leaflets” or “summary of product characteristics” or “bulas” or “folhetos” or “prescription information”) and “software”; bulas/folhetos are the Portuguese designations of PLs. Keywords were searched in PubMed, Cochrane Library, and SciELO without time restrictions in June 2018. A complementary search was carried out in Google Scholar (2016-2018). Results: 219 studies were identified and 12 met the inclusion criteria. From the 12 selected studies, 3 studies were related to software applications that evaluate text features and the remaining 9 studies were related to other topics, such as extraction and collection of information. Conclusion: software that extract and analyze information of PLs, or that evaluate and simplify PLs is limited and specific to certain languages. The development of new IT tools in this field may be relevant, especially for local cultures and contexts.