RESI-Med
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding and enhancing medicines management resilience in home- dwelling older people living with frailty
IRAS ID
282508
Contact name
Beth Fylan
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Summary of Research
For older people living at home, managing medicines can be complicated and challenging. They need to organise supplies, cope with changes to their medicine and routines, and take action when they think there have been mistakes or when they feel unwell. Poorly managed medicines may result in a deterioration of medical conditions and being admitted to hospital which could lead to reduced ability to lead a normal life.Aim:
To work with older people and their carers to understand:
1. The routines that people use to help them manage their medicines.
2. How they might recognise when they need help or if their health is getting worse.
3. Together develop skills and tools to self-manage medicines and access help from healthcare professionals when it is needed.We will interview 32 older people and their carers to find out about how they manage medicines, how they get help, their strategies and routines, and what they are able to do to overcome problems. We will invite them via their GP practice. We will also interview 16 healthcare professionals in primary and community care to understand how they support patients. Our focus will be on people who are mildly or moderately frail which means they are more likely to be living at home and have an overall management role of their medicines
We will then work with groups of patients, carers and healthcare staff in workshops to create tools that patients and their carers can use to manage medicines. We will aim to have 4 patients / carers and two staff members in each workshop and run at least two workshops in each of four areas.
We will ask patients, carers and healthcare staff to assess what has been developed and to see if others would benefit. We will do this by running two focus groups each with patients/carers and staff members.
Lay summary of study results:
We developed a set of resources called ‘I Manage My Meds’ to support people 65+ taking five or more medicines to manage them safely. It has five parts:
• Always check what you get
• Keep on top of your supply
• Routines and reminders
• Changes to watch out for
• Time to ask for help.
We followed these steps to develop the tools:
1 We looked at what other researchers had done before to support patients. We reviewed 33 studies and found that they had not focussed on the wide range of skills patients need to manage many medicines.
2 We interviewed 32 older people (aged 65+) and found that patients find managing multiple medicines to be a burden. They thought that it is a difficult job they need to with limited support. For some it affected how they enjoyed their life. However, most valued practical help and solutions to make this job easier. We also interviewed 16 healthcare professionals to understand how they support patients. We found that staff play many different, overlapping roles but were short of time and resources.
3 We created a film of patients’ experiences and worked with two groups of patients, family members and healthcare staff in workshops to agree priorities for improving their experiences managing medicines. Co-design groups then developed a programme of support tools for patients to develop self-management skills.
4 We held focus groups with patients and staff members to understand their views about the tools we developed. The groups helped us rethink the way the tools worked and the language used so that it felt supportive and interactive. The groups also stressed how important it is to present the tools from the patient’s point of view. They also gave us ideas for different ways for people to access the tools.Summary of Results
: We developed a set of resources called ‘I Manage My Meds’ to support people 65+ taking five or more medicines to manage them safely. It has five parts:
• Always check what you get
• Keep on top of your supply
• Routines and reminders
• Changes to watch out for
• Time to ask for help.
We followed these steps to develop the tools:
1 We looked at what other researchers had done before to support patients. We reviewed 33 studies and found that they had not focussed on the wide range of skills patients need to manage many medicines.
2 We interviewed 32 older people (aged 65+) and found that patients find managing multiple medicines to be a burden. They thought that it is a difficult job they need to with limited support. For some it affected how they enjoyed their life. However, most valued practical help and solutions to make this job easier. We also interviewed 16 healthcare professionals to understand how they support patients. We found that staff play many different, overlapping roles but were short of time and resources.
3 We created a film of patients’ experiences and worked with two groups of patients, family members and healthcare staff in workshops to agree priorities for improving their experiences managing medicines. Co-design groups then developed a programme of support tools for patients to develop self-management skills.
4 We held focus groups with patients and staff members to understand their views about the tools we developed. The groups helped us rethink the way the tools worked and the language used so that it felt supportive and interactive. The groups also stressed how important it is to present the tools from the patient’s point of view. They also gave us ideas for different ways for people to access the tools.REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/SC/0116
Date of REC Opinion
29 Mar 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion