Effects of a medicine review and education programme for older people in general practice.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether a medicine review and education programme influences the compliance and knowledge of older people in general practice.


METHODS
Older people taking at least three medicines were randomly allocated to a control or intervention group. Both groups received three visits from a clinical pharmacist: Visit 1: Assessment and patients' medicines rationalized in intervention group. Visit 2: Intervention group given medicines education. Visit 3: Knowledge and compliance in both groups assessed by structured questionnaire


RESULTS
Compliance in the intervention group was 91.3%, compared with 79.5% in the control group (P < 0.0001). The number of intervention group patients correctly understanding the purpose of their medicines increased from 58% to 88% on the second visit, compared with 67% to 70% in the control group (P < 0.0005).


CONCLUSIONS
A general practice based medication review and education programme improved medicine compliance and knowledge of older people in the short term.
Division of Academic Pharmacy Practice, University of Leeds, 10 Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9NN.
C J
CJ
Lowe
D K
DK
Raynor
J
J
Purvis
A
A
Farrin
J
J
Hudson
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008509:Medication Systems; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods; D010595:Pharmacists / Q000523:psychology; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric