社區老年民眾用藥困擾

Medicine Use Distress on Community-Dwelling Elders

背景：老年人為慢性病和多重藥物使用的高危險群，相對也較容易發生藥物使用相關問題，並產生困擾。研究目的：謂查社區老年民眾用藥困擾情形。研究對象：能使用國、台語溝通之65歲（含）以上之台南老年民眾。研究方法：本研究為社區民眾用藥安全長期研究計畫的一部分，共發出問卷186份，有效問卷為168份（完整率90.3%）。研究結果：研究對象主要為65-74歲、教育程度國小（含）以下、已婚的女性、超過七成有慢性病、八成與配偶或親屬同住。79.8%的研究對象曾經有用藥困擾，其中以「因藥物使用副作用太大，不知是否停藥感到困擾」佔最高49.4%。老年男性與女性民眾之用藥困擾情形以「因藥物使用毫無效果，不知是否繼續服用方式感到困擾」達統計顯著差異。研究結論：社區老年民眾曾經有用藥困擾高達八成，因此應建立老年人可近性的用藥諮詢管道，以降低老年民眾用藥危害風險。

Background: Elders are the high risk of suffering chronic diseases and polypharmacy resulted in distress of medicine usage. Aim: To investigate the degree of distress on medicine usage on elders living in community. Participants: Included citizens of Tainan City, who were 65 years or older, and spoke either Mandarin or Taiwanese Chinese. Methods: This study was partial longitudinal study about the medicine safety for community residents. A total of 186 survey packages mailed out and 168 returned with a completion rate of 90.3%. Results: The majority of participants were between 65 and 74 years old, held less than a grade school level of education, were married and female. Over 70% of participants suffered a chronic disease and 80% lived with either their spouse or their relatives. Approximately, 79.8% of participants experienced medicine use distress. In this sample, 49.4% of participants reported that they felt distress about whether to stop taking medicine or not due to severe side effects of medicine. 'There was significant difference between male elders and female elders in item question 'felt distress about whether to keep taking medicines or not due to no effect of medicine.' Conclusion: The findings suggest that an effort of establishing an approachable counseling channel of medication may lead to reducing a risk of medicine misusage for community elders.