title: Becoming old as a 'pharmaceutical person': negotiation of health and medicines among ethnoculturally diverse older adults.
abstract: Because medication prescribing and use have become a normative aspect of health care for older adults, we seek to understand how individuals navigate prescribed-medication use within the context of aging. We reasoned that, for those who are ambulatory, medication use is likely influenced by ethnocultural meanings of health and experiences with alternative approaches to health care. Accordingly, we conducted a qualitative study, with in-depth interviews, on a diverse sample of older adults in order to identify elderly persons' perceptions and uses of medicines. Our findings depict older adults as active agents--who draw on a lifetime of experience and knowledge--who take responsibility for adherence (or non-adherence) to medicines and their associated effects on their own bodies. We represent the older person as a "pharmaceutical person" whose experiences of aging are inextricably tied up with the negotiation of medicine-reliant health care.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Trent University.
authors.forename: Peri J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Ballantyne
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Science, University of Toronto.
authors.forename: Raza M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Mirza
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Science, University of Toronto.
authors.forename: Zubin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Austin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Science, University of Toronto.
authors.forename: Heather S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Boon
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy, Dalhousie University.
authors.forename: Judith E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Fisher
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003469:Culture; D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000523:psychology*; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D055118:Medication Adherence / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D009864:Ontario; D036301:Qualitative Research