Background The patient role is changing to include further patient involvement, control and empowerment. Little is known about patients’ perspectives on self-medication or nurse administration of medicines and the use of Patients Own Drugs (PODs). With respect to tailoring a patient-specific clinical pharmaceutical service to this new patient profile, the One-Stop Dispensing (OSD) medication system was tested.

Purpose To determine patients’ perspectives about self-medication within the OSD system on an acute orthopaedic ward.

Material and methods The pilot project ran from April to December 2013. Before inclusion, a nurse or senior doctor assessed whether individual patients were suitable for self-medication according to the regional medicine guidelines. Medicines including PODs were placed in a bedside locker, after a pharmacist had taken a medicines history, performed quality assurance and provided drug information to the patient. After surgery, patients were discharged with all prescribed medicines in the original packages to cover treatment to 10 days. Structured telephone interviews were conducted with 35 patients. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

Results All OSD patients were satisfied with administering their own medicine during admission. Of the OSD patients, 89% (n = 31) felt they had been provided with sufficient drug information and been empowered regarding their drug treatment during hospitalisation. Of the OSD patients 92% (n = 32) were satisfied with the drug information provided at discharge. The majority (97% (n = 32)) of the OSD patients felt secure and comfortable due to provision of medicine to cover treatment for 10 days from discharge. However, some (9% (n = 3)) OSD patients reported that they were left by themselves by the nursing staff, and some (11% (n = 4)) missed a medicines reminder system.

Conclusion This study found that the patients who were capable of self-administration benefitted from the OSD system during hospitalisation and at discharge, but some challenges have to be addressed in the interdisciplinary culture to improve the OSD system.

References and/or Acknowledgements No conflict of interest.