2019 Volume 45 Issue 12 Pages 688-697
The medical system has been changing from medical institutions to home medical care with an increase in the number of elderly persons. Home medical care is a type of interprofessional team care, requiring pharmacists' participation. However, insufficient cooperation with other occupations makes participation difficult under some circumstances. In this study, we interviewed 5 pharmacists who had participated in home medical care in Aichi Prefecture with respect to the involvement of pharmacists in home medical care and opinions regarding multi-occupational cooperation (semi-structured interview), and qualitatively analyzed their responses using the Grounded theory approach. Concerning the involvement of pharmacists in home medical care, two characteristics were extracted: “pharmacists' viewpoint required for home medical care” and “relationship with other occupations”. In the field of home medical care, the number of requests for the management of terminal-stage patients has increased, and pharmacists must perform “viewpoint of medical staff”-based management, such as sterile preparation and emergency management. On the other hand, pharmacists' “viewpoint of living people” to support patients' feelings or lifestyle and “view of life and death” were required for the management of terminal-stage patients. With respect to the relationship with other occupations, the results showed that pharmacists' low-level recognition of the contents of home service affected cooperative work, suggesting the necessity of presenting the pharmacists' position to contribute to other occupations and establishing a face-to-face relationship.
