Abstract
A significant number of adults in the UK struggle to cope with context-specific demands on their literacy: medicines pose specific challenges. People with long-term conditions may have been taking medicines since childhood: it is important through adolescence to building dependence, leading to a transfer of responsibility from the parent/carer to the young person. Building knowledge of basic information about medicines is part of that empowerment process. The objective of this abstract, as part of a wider study of the links between identity, arthritis and medicines for young people, is to explore young people’s proficiency in spelling the names of medicines used to treat juvenile arthritis.