Læknablaðið : fylgirit - 01.03.1983, Side 106
Results
Sex distribution: Women 83
Men 33
Age distribution: 40 - 49 years old 3
50 - 59 - - 5
60 - 69 - - 4
70 - 79 - - 42
80 - 89 - - 49
90 - 99 - - 13
Of those asked, all but 9 said that they used drugs regularl
On closer questioning however, five of these proved to take
drugs regularly. Then the nurses collected the medicin and
counted the pills left in each package.
y-
Table 1 shows a summary of how closely people follow instructiohs
on the taking of drugs. For each of five groups of drugs, the
informationson prescription date and initial dose were used to
calculate an average figure for how closely people follow the
instructions. The proportional average is adjusted to unity.
If the result is higher than 1 then the patient is taking less
of the drug than prescribed, and of course the reverse is true
if the figure is less than 1. It is remarkable that for all
groups of drugs the consumption is half or less of the prescribed
amount.
It is of cour.se well known that there are great variations in
how closely patients follow instructions on taking drugs,
issued by doctors. There are drugs which people tend to take
in doses larger than prescribed, and others where the reverse
is the case. It should also be taken into account that for
certain groups of drugs, e.g. sedatives and hypnotics, people
are given by the doctor a certain amount of freedom about taking
the drugs, so the drugs are taken when required, and a maximum
dose indicated. As far as antibiotics are concernded, it has
been said to very apparent, that prescribed instructions are
very poorly followed by patients.
It is somewhat astonishing, that in the case of drug groups 2,
3 and 5, i.e. heart drugs, hypertension drugs and electrolyte
supplements, people do not follow the doctors instructions.
In such cases, the doctor issues very strict instructions on
the use of the drug, and effective treatment depends heavily
on how well the patient carries out the instructions. It is
noticable that even for this group, where the patients are all
closely supervised by the home nursing service and presumably
have mostly a good relationship with their doctor, the results
are no better than indicated by the figures, i.e. the prescribed
drugs are taken for more than twice the intended period. This
raises the question whether their illness may in fact be due
to the poor taking of the drug.
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