Experiences of patients receiving Home Care and living with polypharmacy: a qualitative interview study

In Sweden, patients receiving Home Care (HC) are older people with frailty and multimorbidity, and are often treated with many medicines. Their perspectives on polypharmacy have been sparsely explored. To investigate HC patients' experiences and perceptions regarding polypharmacy. Semi-structur...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:BJGP open 2022-06, Vol.6 (2), p.BJGPO.2021.0181
Main Authors: Mannheimer, Stina, Bergqvist, Monica, Bastholm-Rahmner, Pia, Gustafsson, Lars L, Vég, Anikó, Schmidt-Mende, Katharina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
frailty
general practice
health services for the aged
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
multimorbidity
polypharmacy
primary healthcare
psychosocial functioning
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In Sweden, patients receiving Home Care (HC) are older people with frailty and multimorbidity, and are often treated with many medicines. Their perspectives on polypharmacy have been sparsely explored. To investigate HC patients' experiences and perceptions regarding polypharmacy. Semi-structured interviews with 17 patients with HC in Stockholm, Sweden. The interview questions were open and aimed to encourage participants to speak freely about their personal experiences of living with polypharmacy. Data were analysed using an inductive thematic analysis. The participants' median age was 83.5 years (range 74-97 years) and the median number of prescribed medicines was 11 (range 5-30). The following two themes were identified: (1) experiences from daily life with polypharmacy; and (2) dependency on the relationship to healthcare professionals. The first theme contains the main finding, which was the diversity in how older people experienced polypharmacy and how they coped with polypharmacy in everyday life. While some were satisfied despite having multiple medicines, others experienced such psychological unease owing to polypharmacy that it led to reduced quality of life. The second theme reflects the importance of the relationship between the older person and healthcare professionals for medicine-related ideas and attitudes. The individual variation in experiences regarding polypharmacy points to the value of interprofessional teamwork with the patient as an active partner. Therefore, healthcare professionals need to adapt a more person-centred approach where the patient's perspectives are respected and considered in medicine-related decisionmaking.
ISSN:2398-3795
2398-3795
DOI:10.3399/BJGPO.2021.0181