Patients' experiences of a medicines-related hospital admission and accessing medicines information: a qualitative study of hospital in-patients

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Purpose/Problem

This research aimed to find out about patients’ experiences of a medicines-related hospital admission and who they seek medicines information from.

Research has shown that up to 7.7% of hospital in-patient admissions are due to medicines-related problems. Many studies have focussed on the medicines responsible, and consequences of these admissions, but little is known about patients’ experiences.

Method

Patients admitted to in-patient wards at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital with a medicines-related problem were identified by hospital staff. They were given information about the study and invited to be interviewed about their experiences. Semi-structured interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. They were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), an in-depth technique that aims to find out about a person’s lived experience and how they interpret it. This involves interviewing a relatively small number of participants in detail about their experiences.

Results

Seven patients were interviewed; the analysis of the interviews found that patients described their medicines-related hospital admission as ‘terrible’ and ‘being in hell’. There were differences in opinion about who participants would ask about their medicines and this depended on two factors; accessibility and trust. Some patients lacked confidence in their ability to understand and retain medicines-related information. Even patients who thought that community pharmacists provided the best medicines information would not personally use them.

Conclusion

Patients are adversely affected by a medicines-related hospital admission and vary in who they seek medicines-related information from. Challenges exist in encouraging patients to engage better with community pharmacists.