Standardized method to assess medicines' acceptability: focus on paediatric population.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this article was to present an original standardized tool assessing the medicine's acceptability whichever their characteristics and the patient features.

METHODS: An acceptability map was built with objective measures from medicine use assessments collected in real-life conditions. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was used for the mapping process. Hierarchical classification on the principal components (HCPC) of the MCA was performed for the clustering process corresponding to distinct acceptability profiles.

KEY FINDINGS: The results presented here focus on 234 evaluations issued from the paediatric population and gathered in four clusters: 'well-accepted' (50%), 'accepted' (19%), 'poorly accepted' (25%) and 'not accepted' medicines (6%). The first one was characterized by a dose fully taken, in a short time, with a patient's positive reaction; the second by a longer administration time, a neutral reaction and the use of methods to achieve administration (reward, divided dose). Differentiation between the two last clusters was, respectively, originated by a required dose partially taken or not taken.

CONCLUSIONS: The acceptability profile of each medicine can be evaluated with the map position of the related patient's assessments barycentre. This tool should satisfy expectations in terms of methods for appropriate acceptability evaluation and standardized comparison among medicines.