Exploring stakeholder perspectives on medication review services for older residents in retirement villages

To explore stakeholder perspectives on a government-subsidised Home Medicines Review (HMR) service and factors affecting the uptake of HMRs for older residents of retirement villages in Australia.

Thirty-two in-depth interviews and four focus groups were undertaken with a purposive sample of 32 residents of retirement villages, 10 pharmacists, nine general practitioners (GPs) and a general practice nurse. Data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using the framework approach.

Three major themes were identified: participants' perceptions of the HMR service, barriers to the uptake of HMRs and strategies for increasing the uptake of HMR. Residents had positive, negative or mixed perceptions, whereas health professionals were generally positive about the benefits of the service. Barriers to the uptake of HMRs were related to GPs, pharmacists, patients and the healthcare system. A strategy recommended by multiple stakeholders for increasing the uptake of HMRs was to use a multi-faceted intervention targeting residents and their health professionals.

Multiple barriers to the uptake of HMRs and multiple strategies for increasing the uptake of HMRs were identified. These findings could inform the design of interventions to improve uptake of HMRs by residents and health professionals, in turn leading to better medicine use and safety.