Working in partnership with patients/ clients who self administer medication

A literature review

Self-management has become a concept adopted by the Department of Health (DH) to enable people with chronic health conditions to become the controlling entity over their illness therefore promoting independence and psychological well being. Initiatives that recommend this practice are National Service Framework for chronic disease management and self-care (DH 2002) and National Service Framework for Long-Term Conditions (DH 2005). Part of the framework plan is to implement a strategy to enable people to self-administer their own medication. This includes self-medicating in the community and in acute hospitals.

Compliance and …show more content…

Consultation should have a plan of action; a topic, learning objectives and learning outcomes (Goodman-Brown 2003:534). Nurses should have adequate knowledge about specific diseases and treatment when delivering information, especially in the effect of drugs, dosing, contraindications and side effects or patients will lack of trust in professional judgement (Simpson 2006:2614).
Reliance is often heavy on family/ carer involvement but often they are not considered in decisions, involving carers should be incorporated and encouraged into the decision making process as long as patient autonomy remains and confidentiality at the request of the patient (Francis et al. 2006:206).

To recap, the framework for decision sharing should proceed by understanding the patient, based on psychosocial and cultural knowledge then exploring ways to proceed with treatment, open communication should be used enabling decisions that gather together a plan of action (NPC 2007:11). Shared decision-making has been found to improve empowerment and positive outcome and the professional gains merit in competence (Hook 2006:142).

It seems older adults are ‘at risk’ to medication errors more than other population groups. This probability is due to an increase in associated aging physiological disease and increase in polypharmacy. A Qualitative study using 4955