抄録
A surveillance by questionnaire was conducted among pharmacists in a community pharmacy in Nagoya City, regarding their home health-care activity. The surveillance consisted of 115 regular pharmacists, of 104 pharmacy-stations, and 409 patients at home. The items in the questionnaire were divided into the following three major parts :
1. To examine the current home-care activities by pharmacists, the length of stay, the contents of patient treatment and the conversation-time between a patient and a pharmacist were queried. The average stay of most pharmacists ranged from 10-19 minutes per visit. During this period, the ratio of pharmaceutical treatment and nurse-type care was approximately 50% for each. The conversation took place longer with home-helpers and patient than with patients alone.
2. To examine the grade of pharmaceutical activity at home, to identify the person in charge of controlling medicines, evaluate compliance for medication, the extent of knowledge on medicines, and the amount of remaining medicines were queried. In many cases, helpers controlled medicines, rather than the patients themselves. The names and indications were poorly memorized, but the dosages were well understood by patients. The amounts of remaining medicines tended to be longer at the homes of patients living alone than for those with helpers.
3. The causes of complaints from patients and the comments and/or appeals from patients and either their families or visiting care-providers were queried to determine what pharmacists can do to improve the situation. A substantial number of questions were related to pharmaceutical affairs such as the indications, adverse effects and drug interactions, followed by queries on diseases. In addition, numerous complaints about the difficulties of working as a home helper and problems in the human relations between patients and helpers were also expressed.
The information thus obtained revealed that the home-care activities conducted by a pharmacist are still not satisfactory regarding the welfare of home-care patients, thus indicating that there is large room for improvements in the pharmaceutical home-care functions of pharmacists. The evidence obtained in the present investigation can hopefully provide a clue for pharmacists and patients to consider the present status of mutual home-care activities in order to improve the pharmacist' s role in home-care.
