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.
Lowe
C J
CJ
Division of Academic Pharmacy Practice, University of Leeds, 10 Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9NN.
Raynor
D K
DK
Purvis
J
J
Farrin
A
A
Hudson
J
J
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