DRUG EDUCATION PROGRAM (DEP) FOR COMMUNITY-DWELLING ELDERLY

Good chronic disease control requires satisfactory medication adherence. Unfortunately, omission of doses is common among elderly due to complicated regimen and self-perceived adverse drug effects. A 4-week Drug Education Program (DEP) based on Health Belief Model was designed to improve the drug knowledge and hence tackle the drug adherence problem. It was an experimental pre and posttest control group design. Elderly community centers were approached and randomized into experimental and control group according to a computer-generated list. 108 community-dwelling elderly from 4 centers joined the study. 55 in the experimental group received the DEP once a week for 4 week, while 53 in the control group received social gathering and news sharing for the same duration. There were 30 male and 78 female; with the mean age of 77; the majority of them suffered from hypertension, diabetes and congestive heart failure which required regular follow up and had to take 1–2 drugs daily. The content of the DEP includes drug knowledge on hypertension, diabetes, pain and constipation. Interactive teaching methods were used to arouse participants’ interest, while true-and-false questions to assess the retention of memory at the end of each lesson. A set of questionnaire was used to assess the drug knowledge gain. Upon completion of the DEP, there was significant increase in the drug knowledge (from 9.48 to 12.63; p<0.05) for the experimental group and not the control group. Also, general feedback from the participants has been very positive.