Background According to regulations, any patient taking medication should receive information from healthcare professionals. In this sense, we would like to propose pharmaceutical consultations to inpatients. The quality and relevance of the information are important. Patients’ needs are also important in providing information.

Purpose To explore patients’ expectations regarding the way of giving and transmitting medication information in order to optimise pharmaceutical consultation.

Material and methods Over 2 month, a self-administered questionnaire was given to rheumatology inpatients. It was divided into 3 parts: demographic data (6 items); information about medications already received (5 questions); and type of intervention desired (7 questions). Results are expressed in percentage of patients responding to each question.

Results 129 patients participated (M/F=48/81, mean age=55.3 years, mean number of chronic medications=6.8). 73.2% had already received information from a physician (51.9%), a pharmacist (25.0%; ratio community/hospital=2.46) and/or a nurse (18.9%), mainly during physician consultation (45.0%), hospitalisation (66.7%) or drug delivery (33.3%). Information was accompanied by written documentation in only 37.6% of cases. 62.3% of patients had searched for information on the website. 91.9% said they would like to receive targeted information, primarily on side effects and their management (74.6%), efficacy and toxicity monitoring (63.2%), drug interactions (58.8%), lifestyle and dietary advice (43.0%), and therapeutic regimen (28.9%). They expected that information to be disclosed individually (79.5%), collectively (5.4%), or both (11.6%), by a physician (71.1%), a pharmacist (66.7%) and/or a nurse (34.2%). 11.7% thought that oral information was sufficient; patients would also like to receive a written document (51.4%), a digital format (26.1%) or association of all three (10.8%).

Conclusion This study will allow us to propose a pharmaceutical consultation with effective tools suited to patients’ expectations. Patients undoubtedly benefit from reliable information. It seems appropriate to develop individual interviews in which oral information would be supplemented by written documents or digital formats. Clinical pharmacists seem to be the relevant interlocutors for patients. They should play a leading role in improving patient knowledge on medication.

No conflict of interest