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Beliefs about medicines among Norwegian outpatients with chronic cardiovascular disease
  1. Kirsten K Viktil1,2,
  2. Hilde Frøyland1,
  3. Maria Rogvin3,
  4. Tron Anders Moger3,4
  1. 1Diakonhjemmet Hospital Pharmacy, Oslo, Norway
  2. 2School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  3. 3Department of Health Management and Health Economics, Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  4. 4Department of Biostatistics, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  1. Correspondence to Dr K K Viktil, Diakonhjemmet Hospital Pharmacy, PO Box 23, Vinderen, Oslo NO-0319, Norway; kirsten.viktil{at}diakonsyk.no

Abstract

Objective To investigate the beliefs of Norwegian outpatients about medicines, and to explore if some patient-specific factors and drug use are associated with the beliefs.

Methods Patients from an outpatient clinic for chronic cardiovascular diseases were referred by physicians to a pharmacist-led medication outpatient clinic. Here the patients were asked to complete the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire.

Results 150 patients were included (mean age 70.0 years (range 31–91), 50 (33.3%) women), using a total of 1061 drugs. 91.2% strongly believed in the necessity of their medicines and 29.7% had strong concerns. Multivariate regression analyses showed that with an increasing number of drugs, the score for necessity was significantly increased (p<0.01). Women were significantly more concerned than men (p=0.03). The older the patient, the higher the score for general harm of medicines (p=0.01).

Conclusions Although the majority of the patients in this study believed in the necessity of their medication, one-third had strong concerns.

  • CLINICAL PHARMACY
  • MEDICAL EDUCATION & TRAINING
  • PHARMACOTHERAPY
  • INDIVIDUALISED MEDICATION SURVEILLANCE

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2013-000346

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