Indonesian Journal of Medical Linguistics
Vol. 1 No. 3 (2026): Health literacy, consent, and institutional trust in Indonesian healthcare

Communicating effects, producing compliance: pharmaceutical counseling and the language of therapeutic responsibility in Indonesian clinics

Novella Putri Dwijayanti (Universitas Islam Negeri Kiai Haji Achmad Siddiq Jember)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Sep 2026

Abstract

Background: Pharmaceutical counseling in Indonesian clinics is increasingly central to medication safety, yet side-effect communication is often treated as technical information rather than as language that shapes patient responsibility and therapeutic compliance. Objective: This study examines how publicly available Indonesian pharmaceutical counseling materials frame side effects, produce compliance, and distribute therapeutic responsibility among patients, pharmacists, clinicians, and institutional texts. Method: Using qualitative discourse-pragmatic analysis, this study analysed 29 verified public and scholarly documents, with 16 primary counseling texts coded through side-effect framing, compliance pragmatics, and therapeutic responsibility mapping. Results: Side effects were most frequently framed through warning and risk consequence, especially in relation to antibiotics, tuberculosis therapy, hypertension medication, psychotropic drugs, and self-medication. Compliance was mainly produced through continuation directives, professional consultation instructions, monitoring obligations, dose discipline, and reassurance-supported guidance. Therapeutic responsibility was distributed across patient self-management, professional explanation, shared monitoring, and institutional medication information, although patient responsibility appeared most prominently. Implication: These findings suggest that improving adherence requires not only more counseling but also more accountable, comprehensible, and patient-sensitive ways of communicating uncertainty, risk, and continued treatment. Novelty: This study advances pharmaceutical communication research by repositioning adherence from a behavioural outcome to a discourse-pragmatic process through which side effects become obligations, warnings, and shared therapeutic duties.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

ijml

Publisher

Subject

Description

Indonesian Journal of Medical Linguistics is a double blind peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original research articles and critical studies at the intersection of linguistics, medicine, and health communication. This journal is published quarterly as a platform for the dissemination ...