Individual Education on Rational Drug Use in Primary Healthcare for Patients on Long-Term Medication

Incorrect, unnecessary, ineffective and high-cost drug use is a significant problem all over the world. The adherence of patients to the treatment recommended by the healthcare professional depends on the improvement of their knowledge, attitudes and behaviours about rational drug use (RDU) in the correct direction. There is a need for educational interventions that will increase the knowledge and awareness of the society on this matter and encourage RDU. This study was conducted in Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Family Medicine Training Unit to evaluate the effect of RDU education in individuals aged 45-74 years who were continuously taking medication. In this non-randomised matched controlled intervention study, participants who met the criteria were non-randomly divided into two groups (research and control arm). Firstly, volunteers for the research arm started to be included in the study. According to the distribution of gender, age groups and education levels of the research arm, a one-to-one matching was made to the control arm in terms of these qualifications. In this way, the effects of three possible confounding variables for the two arms were controlled through group matching. In the first visit, data were collected from the research and control arms with questionnaire forms including sociodemographic information and the Rational Drug Use Scale (RDUS). In the first visit after the completion of the questionnaire form, each individual in the research arm was given individual-patient education on rational drug use and patient brochure by the researcher. The control arm received no educational intervention and was not given a brochure at the first visit. The final visit was conducted with both the research and control arms 3 months after the first visit of each individual. The effect of the educational intervention on RDU was evaluated with the RDUS. In this visit, the individuals in the control arm were also given a patient brochure in line with the 'principle of equality'.