Research On Health Status And Pharmaceutical Care Needs Of The Elderly In China

With the acceleration of global aging process, there has been a sharp increase in the number of older people, health problems and medication of the elderly gradually attracted attention of the whole society. As a special group, wirh several diseases and muli-drug use, the elderly are prone to get troubled in problems such as unreasonable drug use, medication nonadherence, and so on. And there is a higher incidence of adverse reactions for the eaderly, which affect the health and life quality of old people to some extent. Studies have shown that pharmaceutical care can help to promote rational drug use, improve medication compliance and drug treatment of the elderly, so as to improve their life quality significantly. However, studies on pharmaceutical care in China started late and the development is lagging behind relatively. Through understanding the pharmaceutical care that the elderly receive and their demand, this study aims to explore a special elderly pharmaceutical care mode and to provide basis for the development of pharmaceutical care and the promotion of healthy aging. Meanwhile, this study presents some improvement strategies, which can enrich the theory and practice of pharmaceutical care in our country, and can also provide a reference for relevant state departments to make scientific elderly medical health service policy.With methods of literature study, interview, questionnaire survey and statistical analysis, taking 1262 cases aged over 60 years as objects, this paper studied their health status and pharmaceutical care demand. First, using literature research to understand the aging status, the development of pharmaceutical care as well as the elderly health service demand, so as to propose the research ideas; combining with the interview results to design the questionnaire.Second, through the pre-survey to revise and improve the questionnaire, and then conduct a large sample survey to collect data information; SPSS21.0 was used for data analysis, analytical methods including descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis, etc. Finally, based on the results of statistical analysis, we draw conclusions, and put forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.The results show that the prevalence of chronic diseases is as high as 95.2%, per capita 3.11 diseases. The prevalence of hypertension(44.3%), osteoporosis/hyperplasia(37.6%), coronary heart disease(27.8%) is relatively high. Despite the high prevalence of chronic diseases, the results of life quality evaluation is better, EQ-5D mean(0.85) and EQ-VAS mean(82.28) are all at a high level. In terms of KAP assessment, respondents’ medical knowledge average score(15.01) and medication beliefs mean score(2.99) all belong to the lower level; medication compliance mean score(8.18) belongs to medium level, but it still needs to be improved. Irrational drug use behavior such as missed / forgotten medication, casually dosage, self-withdrawal or replacement medicines is common. Respondent’s perception of pharmacists and pharmaceutical care is in primary level, the evaluation on service quality of pharmacists is not high. Respondents generally have a higher demand for pharmaceutical care in terms of medication and health education.Accordingly, this study put forward some countermeasures as follows. First, the state should perfect the relevant laws and regulations as soon as possible, establish the legal status of pharmacists; draw lessons from foreign advanced experience to perfect our pharmaceutical care system.Second, pharmacists should strengthen their own ability to improve patients’ satisfaction and trust; pharmacists should also establish personal medication records for elderly patients, explore how to realize the common share of electronic medication record via the Internet. Moreover, pharmacists should use pharmacogenomics knowledge to provide elderly patients with individualized regimen to improve medication compliance. In addition, Pharmacists should also develop various forms of health education activities to promote rational drug use knowledge and correct medication belief.