Development and Clinical Use of Assessment Indicators for Improving Medication Adherence of Elderly Residents in Nursing Home

BACKGROUND: South Korea is rapidly being an aging-society and the demand of long-term care insurance services for elderly patients is rising. In addition, because the elderly taking multiple medicines, the adherence is lowered and the adverse events are easily occurred. Therefore, many are interested in introducing the geriatric pharmacy specialist to manage this situation. PURPOSE: By applying a similar program such as the geriatric pharmacy specialist working in nursing home, we conducted this study to evaluate the potential contribution to both the health insurance services and financial savings for the elderly patients. METHODS: We conducted a trial in an elderly nursing home to collaborate between doctor and pharmacist making a checklist for improving medication adherence and establish a consultation system. Also we applied a smart phone application in the pharmaceutical care processes. RESULTS: Thereby completing the drug therapy related checklist apply to nursing facilities in South Korea. And we got a performance that improves medication adherence when used in the clinical practice settings. CONCLUSION: By introducing a training program of pharmacy care managers and geriatric professionals such as the United States and Japan, we revealed the elderly nursing home residents and vulnerable elderly people living alone were improved the medication adherence and it will contributed to the health and quality of life of the patients.

A Study on the Effect of Preoperative Nursing Informations on the Self-Care in Abdominal Surgery Patients / 기본간호학회지

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of self-care of abdominal surgery patients in surgical intensive care unit after offering preoperative nursing information. This study worked out nonequivalant control group post test only design as suspected experimental study. This subjects of the study were 45 patients, 23 in experimental group and 22 in control group. This study was carried at a university hospital in Taegu between January 12, 1999 and March 13, 1999. The experimental group was supplied with preoperative nursing information and the control group received routine care in ICU. The measuring tools of this study were assessment of the self-care role behavior. The data were analyzed by SPSS computer program, x2 test and t-test and ANOVA were utilized for testing the difference between the experimental and the control group. The hypothesis was examined by t-test. The result of this study are summarized as follows ; 1) The hypothesis, "The experimental group will show a higher level of self-care than the control group" was accepted(t= -8.958, p=0.000). 2) We could not find any meaningful relation about general characteristics and disease associated characteristics between the experimental and the control group. 3) The self-care behavior scores according to the general characteristics and disease associated characteristics show significant statistical difference by economics status (p=0.033). 4) The rate of self-care behavior scores of each questionnaire are below average in the questions that request active activity to prevent postoperative complications From the result of this study, the self-care of the experimental group was higher than those of the control group, and the nursing information can be regarded as an effective nursing intervention for preoperative patients.