Abstract :
Introduction: The elderly population has been increasing steadily with a proportionate rise in comorbidities and polypharmacy. Increased pill burden makes it difficult for the elderly to take the medications correctly and thus ending with poor symptom control, recurrent hospitalization and even death. Every patient should be made aware of their medication, timings, desired effects, side effects, and precautions. As most of the medications come with instructions that are written at a high readability level, the elderly with low literacy are unaware of the drugs being taken appropriately leading to mishaps. Many of the physicians are unable to communicate effectively with the elderly patient due to various reasons like time constraints and high patient load. The role of the pharmacist is limited solely to dispensing medicines and effective pharmaceutical care is limited to few. With this background, an observational study was conducted to evaluate the compliance to medication in 108 elderly patients before and after the use of pictogram pouches in Geriatric OPD at JSS Medical College Hospital, Mysore, Karnataka funded
by ICMR.
Materials and materials : This was a prospective observational study carried out from May 2019 to July 2019 in the Geriatric OPD, JSS Medical College Hospital, Mysore, Karnataka. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institutional ethical committee. Written informed consent was taken from willing patients before handing out separate pictogram labeled pouches.108 elderly patients who had Polypharmacy and met inclusion criteria were included in the study. After obtaining written consent, these patients were introduced to a pre-test questionnaire and given 3 separate pictorial pouches illustrating morning, afternoon and night time with before and after food pictures. After a month of using pictogram pouches, the patients were contacted and data from posttest questionnaire were noted and analyzed.
Result : It was seen that the pictogram pouches were successful in relieving the problems associated with correct drug consumption with improved drug compliance s in 97% of the patients which was statistically significant with a ‘p’ value
Conclusion: With this study it can be recommended that pharmacy outlets can dispense drugs in the form of user-friendly, biodegradable pictogram pouches to the elderly, as it will be feasible in rural as well as urban settings. This would minimize hospital admission and therefore the national health burden. An initiative by the Government of India to dispense medicines in pictogram pouches will be an innovative, economical method and will also have a positive impact on geriatric well-being
Keyword :
Elderly, Pictogram, Polypharmacy.