Outreach program to teach safe medicine use to middle school children

FDA Consumer, Nov-Dec, 2006 by Michelle Meadows

Medicine use isn't a typical part of the curriculum for middle school students. But a new educational outreach program is changing that.

Medicines in My Home (MIMH) is intended to teach students in sixth through eighth grades about the safe use of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines. The program was launched in June 2006 by the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), in cooperation with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland and the National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE).

The 45-minute, interactive lesson is a welcome addition to the classroom, according to Frieda Cooney, a health education teacher at Gaithersburg Middle School, Gaithersburg, Md. Cooney is one of three teachers who helped with the pilot program last year. She also initiated the development of tests, worksheets, and a home activity to reinforce the lesson.

"Medicine and self-treatment are concepts that middle school students encounter on a daily basis," Cooney says. "But the meaning and impact of decisions related to these topics haven't been routinely discussed with them." Through MIMH, Cooney cleared up some common misconceptions with her classes.

For instance, few students knew that medicine bottles had expiration dates. "Many of them thought the bathroom medicine cabinet was specially designed to keep medicine fresh," Cooney says. "Many students also didn't realize that prescription medicine should only be used by the person it's intended for. They thought all of the kids in a family could and should take the same medicine for any and all cold symptoms." Some students thought that they could use a drug which was prescribed for a sibling.

During the early stages of the pilot program, health professionals in the CDER's Office of New Drugs and Office of Training and Communications visited schools and taught the MIMH lesson. In time, teachers in the schools took over and successfully taught the course. Three middle schools in Montgomery County participated in the pilot program during the 2005-2006 school year: Gaithersburg, Lake-lands Park, and Briggs Chaney.

Starting this year, MCPS integrated the MIMH lesson into the health education curriculum for all of its sixth-grade health education classes. The suburban D.C. county has 38 middle schools with about 10,000 students in sixth grade.

The FDA encourages other middle schools to adopt the MIMH program. Convenient Web-based resources for the course make it easy to implement the MIMH program. This is the first time that the agency has developed materials to educate school-aged children about medicine use.

Developing the Concept

Karen Feibus, M.D., joined the FDA's Office of Nonprescription Products in December 2003 when the agency had just kicked off a campaign promoting safe use of OTC pain relievers and fever reducers. The campaign focused on OTC medicines containing acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, and ketoprofen. Taking too much acetaminophen can lead to liver damage and death. NSAIDs can cause stomach bleeding and raise the risk of kidney problems.

"Watching the videotape from focus groups that were done for the OTC medicine campaign really made an impact on me," Feibus says. She recalls that one man in the focus group talked about using a four-ingredient cold medicine when he gets sick. He drank medicine directly from the bottle and sometimes finished a whole bottle in a day. He didn't follow directions on the label or measure the correct dose with a medicine measuring tool.

Then, in June 2004, Feibus heard a speech by a representative from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in the United Kingdom (UK). "The speaker discussed incorrect use and overuse of acetaminophen in the UK and complimented FDA on communicating health messages to the public," Feibus says. "She wondered whether the agency had taken its educational campaign into schools." That question sent Feibus' wheels turning. With experience as an obstetrician/ gynecologist, she already had a strong interest in empowering consumers to learn more about their health and to make smart health choices.

"Studies suggest that some children in middle school begin to take medicine on their own," Feibus says, "so it makes sense to bring MIMH to this age group." By October 2004, an MIMH working group of 16 physicians and nurses from the Office of New Drugs and educators from the Office of Training and Communications had committed to developing the MIMH lesson plan and to teaching it in the schools.

Barbara Pearlman, coordinator of health education for MCPS, says she was excited about the program because decision-making skills on medicine use align with the county's sixth-grade unit on "Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs."

Feibus says CDER's Office of Training and Communications professionals created the Web site and helped make the program materials as accessible as possible. "The FDA's mission is to protect and promote the public health, and a big part of that involves educating consumers about how to use the products regulated by the agency," she says.