Patients’ perceptions of their “most” and “least” important medications: a retrospective cohort study

BMC Research Notes

Steven R Simon¹  Amy Linsky¹ 

[1] Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

关键词: Patient safety;    Quality of care;    Veterans;    Adherence;    Communication;   

Others  :  1165277
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-0500-5-619

 received in 2012-09-05, accepted in 2012-10-30,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Despite benefits of adherence, little is known about the degree to which patients will express their perceptions of medications as more or less important to take as prescribed. We determined the frequency with which Veteran patients would explicitly identify one of their medications as “most important” or “least important.”

Findings

We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients from ambulatory clinics at VA Boston from April 2010-July 2011. Patients answered two questions: “Which one of your medicines, if any, do you think is the most important? (if none, please write ‘none’)” and “Which one of your medicines, if any, do you think is the least important? (if none, please write ‘none’).” We determined the prevalence of response categories for each question. Our cohort of 104 patients was predominantly male (95%), with a mean of 9 medications (SD 5.7). Regarding their most important medication, 41 patients (39%) identified one specific medication; 26 (25%) selected more than one; 21 (20%) wrote “none”; and 16 (15%) did not answer the question. For their least important medication, 31 Veterans (30%) chose one specific medication; two (2%) chose more than one; 51 (49%) wrote “none”; and 20 (19%) did not directly answer the question.

Conclusions

Thirty-five percent of patients did not identify a most important medication, and 68% did not identify a least important medication. Better understanding of how patients prioritize medications and how best to elicit this information will improve patient-provider communication, which may in turn lead to better adherence.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Linsky and Simon; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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