Tips and Techniques for Health Care Providers and Educators
"Talk About Prescriptions" Month
October 1986
Physicians and other healthcare professionals use a variety of practical aids to improve understanding and compliance to prescribed medicines. You may want to consider adapting the following approaches to your situation.
- Making an "educational diagnosis" of a patient's counseling needs, including appropriate level of information complexity, potential adherence problems, extent to which the patient is anxious or needs reassurance, and how much information to provide about side effects.
- Encouraging patients to become observers of the specific effects of their medications, including relief of symptoms, timing of effects, results of missed dose, pattern of reactions to foods or multiple drug use, and side effects. The patient is encouraged to record these observations and to report them to the healthcare professional. Adjustments in medication-taking can be made promptly if necessary.
- Having patients keep a medication diary, recording dosage, schedule, side effects, interactions, allergies, etc., for each drug provided; especially for patients with more than one long-term medication.
- Providing adherence aids, such as plastic trays with compartments for setting out a day's exact medication dose.
- Giving patients practical ideas for traveling with their medication, minimizing an unpleasant medication taste, or cueing medication-taking to their daily routine.
- Using a diagram or plastic model of the body to enhance verbal explanations about the site and action of medicines.
- Providing written regimen instructions to patients with a copy for your records.
- Developing a medication-taking contract with the patient, outlining the responsibilities (e.g., taking the medicine three times each day with meals, calling the healthcare provider to report side effects, and avoiding alcohol while taking the medication) and the healthcare provider's responsibilities (e.g., being available to answer questions, providing written information).
- Demonstrating the proper technique for administering a medicine (e.g., eye drops).
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