Elderly ambulatory care patients' knowledge about drugs

The extent of knowledge that elderly ambulatory clinic patients possessed about their maintenance prescription and nonprescription medications was determined using 17 selected questions. Information was obtained by using structured interviews from 100 subjects, 65 years of age or older, selected from a general medicine clinic using the simple two-stage cluster sampling method. The medical charts and various medication teaching manuals were used as criteria to determine whether or not the questions were answered correctly. The questions bout adverse reactions, nonprescription medications to avoid, and activities to avoid or perform with caution were answered correctly less than 30% of the time. Thus, practitioners should not assume that elderly ambulatory patients on maintenance drug therapy possess sufficient knowledge to use their medications safely and effectively.