The objective of this study was to evaluate patient knowledge of newly prescribed
medication after hospital discharge. We reviewed the charts of 172 patients who were
discharged from February 1, 2006, through April 25, 2006, from the internal medicine
residency service at a community-based teaching hospital with prescriptions for 1
or more new medications. Between 4 and 18 days after discharge, patients were contacted
by telephone and asked about the name, number, dosages, schedule, purpose, and adverse
effects of the new medication(s) and whether they could name their medical contact
person. We recorded the number of correct answers, patient age, and years of education.
Of the survey respondents, 86% were aware that they had been prescribed new medications,
but fewer could identify the name (64%) or number (74%) of new medications or their
dosages (56%), schedule (68%), or purpose (64%). Only 11% could recall being told
of any adverse effects, and only 22% could name at least 1 adverse effect. Older patients
tended to answer fewer questions correctly (P=.02). We observed no association between the number of correctly answered questions
and years of education (P=.57), time between discharge and survey (P=.17), or number of new medications (P=.65). Overall, we found that patients had limited knowledge about their medications
after discharge from an internal medicine residency service, with age but not years
of education significantly associated with level of knowledge.
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- Medication Literacy Is a 2-Way StreetMayo Clinic ProceedingsVol. 83Issue 5
- PreviewEffective spoken and written communication of information about medicine to patients is crucial to the success of treatments. The effectiveness and safety of medicines cannot be maximized unless patients understand their role in the medicine-taking process. However, we generally communicate this information badly. Great effort and much time and money are devoted to the front end of developing medicines, but at the end of that process, when the medicine is actually handed over to patients, much is left to chance.
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