The Swedish Rheumatism Association has commissioned the research company to investigate how the Swedish population experiences packaging. We know that our members face significant challenges with packaging that is difficult to open. The survey shows that it’s far from only people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal conditions who struggle with poorly designed packaging.

Having trouble with hard-to-open packaging is a major obstacle in everyday life for many people with rheumatism. We asked Novus to explore how widespread this issue is across society. The Swedish Rheumatism Association regularly conducts surveys on the difficulties our members face with packaging. To understand how this affects the broader Swedish population, we enlisted Novus to carry out a study. It turns out that hard-to-open packaging is a problem for many more people. Here is a brief summary:

18 % always or often struggle to open various types of packaging.

42 % always or often feel irritated when packaging is difficult to open.

Among those who report irritation due to hard-to-open packaging, 22% say this happens daily or several times a week.

69 % have, on one or more occasions, injured themselves while trying to open packaging.

19 % say that the design and functionality of packaging is very or fairly important when deciding whether to buy a product.

27 % report that they sometimes choose not to buy a product in favour of one with packaging they know they can open.