From Summaries of Product Characteristics to Patient Information Leaflets: Where subjectivation and patient orientation meet knowledge dissemination

European legislation requires that Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) come with medicines approved for use and purchase in the EU. Despite efforts to improve their quality, however, PILs are still criticized by patients as too complex, not user-friendly and often useless. The dysfunctional nature and hybridity of PILs follows, among others, from their initial development from Summaries of Product Characteristics (SPCs) and from the parallel drafting of the two genres. Casting basic notions from research in health communication in linguistic terms, this paper addresses some aspects of patient centeredness and (if marginally) trust generation using notions from genre analysis and LSP research, contrastive textology and work on knowledge dissemination. Specifically, it analyses and contrasts generic structure potential, aspects of domain-specific knowledge construction and section (sub-)headings of UK SPCs and PILs to show how PILs link Knowledge Dissemination strategies with patient orientation and subjectivation.