A Survey on Inpatientsa Preferred Methods of Receiving Information about Medicines in London, United Kingdom

Background: Medication education programmes are often developed without input from patients and therefore did not provide what the patients want. This study aimed to identify inpatients' preferred methods of receiving information about their medicines and to determine the relationship between different preferences with regards to age group and education level.

Methods and findings: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Lewisham Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital. 100 inpatients were recruited in June 2017 across oncology, medical, surgical, cardiology, respiratory, and gynaecology disciplines. Patients’ preferences for methods of receiving information was assessed with a newly constructed questionnaire. Patients indicated if a method to receive information about medicine was not desirable, somewhat desirable, desirable, very desirable or extremely desirable. Descriptive parameters and chi-square test were used in the data analysis.

71 patients completed the questionnaire. The top 2 ‘extremely desired’ methods of receiving medication information were ‘face to face discussion with a doctor while in ward’ (n=31, 43.7%) and ‘a written memo or letter on important information about medicines’ (n=26, 36.6%). ‘Online discussion with a pharmacist after discharge’ was least desirable (n=33, 46.5%). Younger patients and patients with higher education level were likely to accept the online discussion than older patients (p=0.004) and patients with less education level (p=0.005).

Conclusions: The study suggests that patients should be offered face to face discussion about their medicines with health care providers before they were discharged home. Personalised written information about medicines is highly preferred and should be considered for the dissemination of medicines information for inpatients.

Author(s): Wei Thing Sze, Richard Pudney, Li Wei

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