Measuring patients' experiences of using medicines version 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of potential methods for measuring patient's experiences of using medicines in long-term illness; Validation of the Living with Medicines Questionnaire (LMQ)
IRAS ID
174102
Contact name
Barbra Katusiime
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Kent
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 8 months, 31 days
Research summary
Medicines are widely used, around half the UK population takes at least one regular medicine and many use multiple medicines for multiple chronic illnesses. This is known as polypharmacy. While polypharmacy may be beneficial, it also poses several challenges. For the individual patient, polypharmacy means people need to spend more time and effort in organising and using their medicines, but may also result in other problems.
Patients’ experiences with using prescription medicines vary. Some may have practical difficulties, or may worry about running out of their long term prescription medicines, while some have negative attitudes towards using medicines. Many people are concerned about side effects, and/or long term harm associated with using medicines, or they may be dissatisfied with the effectiveness of their medicines. All these concerns may lead to dissatisfaction with medicines and stopping medicine use. Also, for patients who pay prescription charges, using multiple medicines can be financially burdensome. Ultimately, individuals may find using multiple medicines to be a burden which could affect their quality of life, physical health, psychological wellbeing and social functioning.
In this study we will test the latest version of a questionnaire which was developed entirely from the patient perspective, the Living with Medicines Questionnaire© (LMQ), to make sure it measures what we think it measures (validity test).
To do this, we need a large sample of people to complete the LMQ3 as well as three other existing questionnaires, which measure some similar things; these are beliefs about medicines, satisfaction with medicines and quality of life. We will therefore ask adult patients, living in England, who are using regular long-term medicines to complete these questionnaires. We plan to recruit patients from community pharmacies (local chemists), general practices and hospital out-patient clinics in Kent and Medway. A group of students will visit these places and invite people who are waiting for prescriptions or appointments to take the questionnaires and complete them while waiting or later, at home. Everyone who is invited will be given written information about the study and an envelope to return the questionnaire either directly to the student or in the post (freepost).As well as finding out whether the LMQ3 is a valid measure, we will also compare results between people recruited from the three different places, to see whether they have different experiences of using long-term medicines.
REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0505
Date of REC Opinion
10 Aug 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion