Medication literacy in elderly patients with chronic diseases: a community pharmacy perspective

Abstract

Background: Long-term therapy with chronic maintenance medication is essential for reducing risks of disease progression, comorbidity, and mortality. A correct adherence and use of the medication are prerequisite for reducing these risks. Medication literacy (ML) is the specific ability to safely access and understand the information available concerning medication, and act accordingly.Methods: To investigate the ML in a community pharmacy of older users in order to study the factors that are associated with inadequate literacy. A total of 400 patients were analyzed to assess the level of ML (document and numeracy) through the MedLitRxSE tool.Results: Our study showed that 66% had an inadequate-ML. Women were a high frequency of inadequate-ML respect to men (70.1% and 29.9%). Users over 65 years with chronic diseases showed a high frequency of inadequate-ML (76.5%) in both sexes (P<0.001).Conclusions: Older users, those with primary or any studies as well as patients taking many medicines for chronic diseases showed a significantly lower level of ML. Health professionals and managers should adopt new strategies that allow to prevent and reduce the errors in the handling of the medicines and avoiding the undesirable effects of a misuse in older patients.