Self-administration of medicines

Inpatient self-administered medication under the supervision of a multidisciplinary team: a randomized, controlled, blinded parallel trial

Background

Self-administered medication (SAM) is encouraged in many hospitals worldwide as it increases patients' knowledge and understanding of their medication, but the effects on other outcomes, e.g. compliance or medication errors, were unclear.

Objectives

To compare medication knowledge, adherence, medication errors, and hospital readmission among inpatients receiving SAM education under the supervision of a multidisciplinary team (study group) with those receiving routine nurse-administered medication (control group).

Methods

This study was a PROBE design. Inpatients with chronic diseases were randomly allocated (1:1) to either the study group or the control group using stratified-block randomization. Knowledge of medications was measured at hospital discharge and at the first two follow-up visits; adherence was measured at the first two follow-up visits, medication errors while in hospital, and hospital readmission within 60 days after discharge. For normally distributed continuous outcomes, mean difference and 95%CI were estimated; otherwise the median and the Mann-Whitney test p-value were reported. The percentage difference and 95%CI were reported for binary outcomes.

Results

70 patients were randomized (35 in each group); all received complete follow-up. Both groups were similar at baseline. Mean (SD) age (years) were 59.2 (11.0) for the study group and 58.3 (12.0) for the control group. Percentages of females in the respective groups were 54.3 and 60.0. Mean time from discharge to the first follow-up visit was two weeks in both groups and time to the second follow-up visit were 68.8 days (study group) and 55.0 days (control group). The study group had significantly higher medication knowledge than the control group at hospital discharge (of the 10-point scale, medians, 8.56 and 6.18, respectively, p<0.001). The corresponding figures were similar in both groups at the first follow-up visit (medians, 8.25 and 6.26, respectively, p<0.001). Adherence to medication at the first visit in the study group (percentage mean 92.50% (SD=5.33%)) was significantly higher than that in the control group (79.60% (SD=5.96%)), percentage mean difference 12.90%, [95%CI 10.20%:15.60%], p<0.001. Medication knowledge and adherence were sustained at the second follow-up visit. During hospitalization, no medication errors were found in the study group, and minimal errors occurred in the control group (1.48%, [95%CI 0.68%:2.28%] of doses administered, p=0.001). Hospital readmission within 60 days after discharge was significantly lower in the study group (11.4%) than that in the control group (31.4%), percentage difference 20.0% (95%CI 1.4%:38.6%), 1-side Fisher exact p=0.039.

Conclusions

Among in-patients with chronic diseases, SAM program significantly increased knowledge of and adherence to prescribed medications. Medication errors regarding administration errors were infrequent but significantly higher in the control group. SAM reduced hospital readmission within 60 after discharge.

Self-administration of medication in hospital: patients' perspectives

BACKGROUND

Little information is available about patients' perspectives on self- or nurse-related administration of medication.

AIM

The aim of the study was to determine patients' perspectives about self-medication in the acute care setting.

METHODS

A qualitative approach, using in-depth semi-structured interviews, was taken. Ten patients with a chronic medical illness who had experienced multiple hospital admissions for treatment were interviewed about their experiences of medication administration in the acute care setting. Participants were recruited from two cardiovascular wards in a private, not-for-profit hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Data collection occurred between August and September 2002.

FINDINGS

Four major themes were identified from the interviews: benefits of self-administration, barriers to self-administration, assessing appropriateness of self-administration and timing of medication administration. Seven participants had previously experienced self-administration of medications and six were in favour of this practice in the clinical setting. Nine managed their own medications at home, and one self-administered with some assistance from his family. Participants were very concerned about how nurses' heavily regulated routines affected delivery of medications in hospital and disrupted individualized plans of care maintained in the home setting.

CONCLUSIONS

In planning and implementing self-administration programmes, it is important to consider patients' views. Medication regimes should be simple and flexible enough to adapt to patients' lifestyles and usual routines. Nurses should also take advantage of opportunities to support and facilitate patient autonomy, to enable more effective management of health care needs when patients return home.

Patient self-administration of medication: a review of the literature

The purpose of this review was to critically examine the literature published in the English language (1983-1995) related to the use of self-medication programmes by hospital patients and to determine whether such a scheme could be implemented and evaluated within the acute medical setting. Searches revealed a wealth of information relating to self-medication and it was evident that such schemes have been welcomed with enthusiasm by clinical nurses. However, only 12 empirical studies evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of self-medication programmes could be located. The remainder were all anecdotal or described the process of implementation in such broad terms that they could not be considered to fulfil the rigorous requirements demanded of research studies. Even the 12 empirical studies contained serious methodological flaws. Thus authors' claims that self-medication increased compliance with the drug regime could not be accepted with confidence. Nevertheless, the authors made a number of sensible recommendations which logically would be expected to increase compliance. These included simplification of the drug regime and careful patient assessment with the programme tailored to meet individual need. It was also possible to highlight areas where future research could be conducted (e.g. more detailed examination of the importance nurse-patient interaction to the success of self-medication, longer-term evaluation) and to identify means of improving research designs so that this important field of patient care may in future be examined with greater rigour.