Educating older adults to avoid harmful self-medication

Abstract

The current project 'Reducing Adverse Self-Medication Behaviours in Older Adults' builds on an earlier study by the investigators in which an educational software program designed for the psychomotor needs of older adults was found to significantly improve older adults' knowledge and self-efficacy to avoid common, potentially serious drug interactions, and to report fewer harmful self-medication behaviours. Extensive formative and usability research has now been completed to develop a 'next generation' interactive system that not only delivers educational content to patients, but integrates prevention into the clinical care environment. This new program allows patients, in a clinic waiting room prior to visits with their regular care provider, to enter their current, self-medication practices privately and independently on a wireless, touch-screen tablet PC. The patient-entered data are then sent via secure, wireless intranet to a database where they are analysed so that educational content tailored to the patient's particular risk behaviours can be delivered. When the program is completed, patients may bring a print-out of the computer session to their appointment. Thus, it is anticipated that the new design will improve patient–provider communication and practice regarding self-medication safety and medical adherence, and make optimal use of patient and clinician time. This paper discusses aims of the larger study and describes formative design research conducted with older adults to develop a touch-screen, tablet interface that was found to significantly reduce errors in independent entry of self-medication behavioural infomation into the system by older adults.

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