How do I keep myself safe? Patient perspectives on including reason for use information on prescriptions and medication
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(2020) 13:63
RESEARCH
Open Access
How do I keep myself safe? Patient perspectives on including reason for use information on prescriptions and medication labels: a qualitative thematic analysis Colin Whaley1* , Ashley Bancsi1, Joanne Man-Wai Ho2,3,4,5, Catherine M. Burns6 and Kelly Grindrod1
Abstract: Background: Medications are crucial for maintaining patient wellness and improving health in modern medicine, but their use comes with risks. Helping patients to understand why they are taking medications is important for patient-centered care and facilitates patient adherence to prescribed medications. One strategy involves enhancing communication between patients, physicians, and pharmacists through the sharing of reason for use (RFU) information or the indication for medications. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 patients in Ontario, Canada, to gain perspectives on how patients currently store their medication information and benefits and disadvantages of adding RFU to prescriptions and medication labels. An interview guide was used by the two interviewers, and the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically coded. Results: The analysis yielded three main themes: patient decision making with RFU, RFU in modern, patientcentered care, and logistical aspects of communicating RFU. The patients that were interviewed expressed the value of having RFU when deciding if a medication was effective or to stop taking the medication. Patients felt comfortable with RFU being added to prescriptions and acknowledged the value in adding RFU to medication labels, helping patients and others identify and distinguish medications. Patients generally expressed interest in having RFU written in lay language and identified strengths and weaknesses of having access to RFU via a website or app. Conclusions: Patients rated the importance of knowing RFU very highly, identified the value in sharing RFU with pharmacists on prescriptions, and in having RFU on medication labels. These results can be used to inform policy on the addition of RFU on prescriptions and medication labels and support improved communication between patients, pharmacists, and physicians about RFU. Keywords: Drug safety, Medicine policy, Pharmacy, Primary care
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 School of Pharmacy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is
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