Patient medication knowledge in healthcare - Dissertation sur la Médecine

Adequate knowledge about medication is a determinant essential for a high quality of life, therapy adherence, as well as, attainment of favorable clinical results [25-30]. Consequently, the poor of knowledge on adherence to the pharmaceutical regimens negatively influences subject awareness and poses a significant problem in healthcare. Investigations concerning knowledge about the indications for prescribed medications in old patients have generated inconsistent outcomes [31-35]. So, our goal was to provide evidence for future health education by assessing the levels of knowledge and adherence to therapy regimen in Tunisian people aged suffering from CD and testing related factors with poor medication knowledge. The calculate of knowledge score for each subject based on responses of the subjects\’ use of medications and data given by the family doctors allows predicting the level of knowledge. As a result, our finding revealed that as many as 64% of the population showed a sub-optimal medicine knowledge. These outcomes are in accordance with other investigations that found a low level of medication knowledge among aged patients with CD [36-38].

Our study focused on four parameters of medication-related information retained by the patients. In terms of knowledge, indication captured the highest recall among patients with 52.9%, followed by posology (48.6%), frequency (44%), and medication name (20%). Our data goes in good analogous with those of previous studies [34, 39-41]. Furthermore, in a study evaluating patient medication knowledge in primary health care facilities in Istanbul, only 10.9% of patients could recall the names of their drugs correctly [41]. In contradiction to this research and these studies cited above, Jaye et al. [42] and Elsy et al. [43] have shown a higher knowledge percentage for drugs name. Factors correlated with poor total medication knowledge were as follows: age over 70 years, low level of education, unsatisfactory financial status, multiple CD, diabetes, a high number of prescribed medications, dissatisfaction of quality of medical consultation, untrust in the doctor, dissatisfaction of quality of care services, as well as, unavailability of drugs.In our study population (age range 65-94 years), we found a significant association between higher age (above 70) and a decreased capacity to knowledge prescribed drugs. This finding is in line with other researches that have shown a negative association between medication knowledge and age [28,44,45]. Thus, poor medication knowledge was likely to be at the origin of the high prevalence of both vascular and cognitive pathologies in

aged people [46-48].In this study, we found an association between low education level and less medication knowledge, which is consistent with other studies [28,49]. Our finding deduces which years of schooling was a determinant of good general knowledge of the purpose of the medicines since educated people can be more adherent due to their ability to follow instructions related to therapy.

Besides, we have inferred low socio-economic statement is more likely to be associated with a lack of knowledge. For instance, irregular daily routine, difficult living conditions, psychological complications, as well as, unemployment could be strongly associated with less knowledge about medication. This result agreed with other investigations [28,50].Based on our study results, significant negative associations between medication knowledge with the number of medicines prescribed and the number of CD have observed. Recently investigations reinforce these associations in aged subjects [34,44,45,51]. For example, Modig et al. have shown that elderly patients with polypharmacy have less knowledge of their medications [34]. The relationships between aging and a grown number of drugs have clearly described, which again, seems to be explained by the highest prevalence of CD observed in the old population. Moreover, we have concluded that patients\’ knowledge of antidiabetic drugs (Metformin) was poor. A study affirms that a loss of knowledge concerning diabetes medications may lead to worse adherence and poor glycemic management [52], which go in good line with our results. Several studies have reported diabetes increases the risk of aging, as well as, the development of cognitive decline with memory and learning disorders [20,21,30,50,52]. So, diabetes is associated with a poly-pathological condition, and its complications progressively affect the quality of life and survival.

In our research, we show that the best medical knowledge has correlated with patients\’ satisfaction by the consultation quality and information presented by the physician. These outcomes go in good analogous to the findings of earlier studies that indicated that medication adherence and patients’ satisfaction increase when a physician provides instructions regarding taking medication [27,53,54]. In our study, we deduce that the unavailability of essential drugs in health facilities was associated with low knowledge of chronic medicines in the old subjects. To the best of our knowledge, this relation has not studied in the literature. However, this result seems reasonable, since the financial situation of the majority of our population has low. As a result, patients are unlikely to be able to buy their medications from a private pharmacy when they are unavailable at CBS pharmacies.

Background: Adequate patients\’ knowledge about medications is essential for appropriate drug-taking behavior and patient adherence. This work was aimed to evaluate the level of treatment knowledge in elderly subjects and to investigate its possible associated factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed from November through December 2018 on old patients. The samples were selected prospective manner from two healthcare centers, Sfax, Tunisia, using a self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate all participants responses. The calculate of knowledge score was based on responses of the subjects\’ use of medications and data given by the family doctors. This score allows for predicting the level of knowledge. The association between qualitative variables was estimated using Pearson\’s chi-square test or Fishers exact test.Results: Our study comprised 70 elderly patients with a CD (26 M/44 F; 70 ± 3.69 years). In terms of knowledge, indication captured the highest recall among patients with 52.9%, followed by posology (48.6%), frequency (44%), and medication name (20%). Around 64% of our patients showed sub-optimal medication knowledge. Factors correlated with poor medication knowledge were as follows: age over 70 years, low level of education, unsatisfactory financial status, multiple CD, diabetes, a high number of prescribed medications, dissatisfaction of quality of medical consultation, untrust in the doctor, dissatisfaction of quality of care services, and, unavailability of drugs.Conclusion: Our findings encourage us to embrace a platform, take account of changes related to age, functional and cognitive impairment, comorbidities, polypharmacy, psychological factors, socioeconomic factors, as well as, personal preferences.

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