[A survey on drug-related service by homehelper in the Japanese home care system]

The purposes of this study are a) to determine whether homehelpers attend to drug-related service of elder care-recipients at home and b) to determine what cooperating human resources were utilized. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted in 1997 with 403 homehelpers who provided in home care to dependent elderly person. Of the total, 19% subjects did deal with care recipients' medication. Regarding the type of service, the highest proportion of subjects had assisted by picking up medicine from pharmacy and talking it to the care recipients' home. Results showed that physicians and home visiting nurses were the most depended upon human resources in the home health care system among health, medical and welfare facilities. Results also suggested that many homehelpers are not aware that pharmacists are readily available resources for providing home health care. Hence we conclude that the respondents tend to rely on physicians or home visiting nurses to respond to care recipients care, and pharmacists should be made aware of the necessity of providing the appropriate drug-related information to physicians or home visiting nurses.