某醫學中心小兒科門診病患照顧者對小兒用藥的理解度探討

The Comprehension of Medication among Caregivers at Pediatric Clinics in a Medical Center

本研究目的是探討小兒科門診病患照顧者對小兒用藥的理解。研究設計為描述性的調查研究，共有101 位個案參與此研究。研究工具為自擬的問卷，用以訪談每位研究個案閱讀藥袋後對小兒藥物說明的理解以及居家用藥習慣。結果顯示：小兒科門診病童平均每人使用4種藥，最多達到8種藥。照顧者對於藥物的作用、使用的時間以及劑量至少有一個理解錯誤者有45.5％；其中以藥物的作用最多人不理解。此次就醫的過程提供口頭用藥說明者以醫師為多，超過70％；藥師只有35％。藥物的外觀或包裝沒有與藥袋相同的中文標示者有31 種藥，其中藥粉佔了17 種。照顧者家中普遍存有小兒剩藥，其中以退燒藥最多。照顧者對藥物資訊的建議包括：增加專業人員口頭說明；藥袋字體增大及加強副作用的說明；藥粉製劑的改善；領藥流程的改善等。

The purpose of our study was to investigate the comprehension about administration of medication among caregivers at pediatric clinics. A descriptive study was conducted and a total of 101 subjects were enrolled in this study. Each participant was asked to read the instruction of medication envelope. A self-designed questionnaire was used to interview the caregivers on two aspects: 1) their comprehension toward the instruction of medication for children; 2) the routine care about administration of medication for children at home. The results showed: 1) on average children took 4 kinds of medicaments and could up to 8; 2) 45.5% of participants had at least one misunderstanding on instruction of medication about medicaments’ effect, interval time of administration and dosage for medicaments taking; 3) the top one identified error was medicaments’ effect. More than 70% of participants received oral instruction of medication from physicians and 35% from pharmacists. There were 31 kinds of medicaments without Chinese instruction on the original package. Seventeen out of 31 were powder medicaments. Chinese instruction only showed on envelope of medicaments. Many caregivers used to store some medicaments at home. The antipyretic was the most popular one. The caregivers’ suggestions for the instruction of medication were a setting of medications’ teaching by professional pharmacists, increasing font size of medicaments’ labels, describing more about side effect of medicaments, having more clear instruction for powder medicaments and a fluent procedure for medicaments acquiring.