A study published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine shows that patients are often unable to name their medications. The results of a small survey of 50 patients in a Colorado Hospital, U.S., reveal that when patients are asked to list their medications 96% of the patients left out at least one drug and on average, they omitted 6,8 medications. Besides that 44% of the patients named a medication that had not been described.

The survey is part of a larger project that examines the role of patients in reducing medication errors and improving patient safety and raises questions like ‘How involved should patients be in their hospital medication safety?’ and ‘How do you involve them?’.

Ethan Cumbler of the University of Denver, who conducted the survey with colleagues, argues that errors do occur, since we do not live in a perfect healthcare system. Therefore if patients do want to be involved in their medication safety, it is important to let them know what they are taking and to let them be an active participant.  A majority (82%) of the participant said that their satisfaction concerning the received care would improve if their hospital medication list would be showed to them. Just 28% of the patients actually saw a list.

Results of the survey also proved age to be a factor in the patients’ ability to name their medications. For example patients aged 65 or younger forgot to mention 60% of their medications, but patients older than 65 omitted 88%.

The study shows that challenges for inpatients to keep track of their medications are the hospital organizational culture and the complexity of medicine itself.
So far little attention has been paid to inpatient setting and on top of that it is not routine to give medication lists in the hospital.

If patients really can be effective at reducing hospital medication errors is questionable. Patients who suffer from dementia or delirium for example are unable to identify their medications and therefore may not be very helpful in ensuring hospital medication safety. However, there are definitely patients who could be valuable. Therefore the level of patient participation should be individually based and approaches to inform patients may have to be customized depending on factors like age and condition.
 

Source: Journal of Hospital Medicine