Home Delivery Medicament Program: access, inactivity and cardiovascular risk.
Roque da Silva Araújo, Edna Apparecida Moura Arcuri, Victor Cauê Lopes
PMID 27737378WHAT IT FOUND
Most inactive home delivery medication program users liked it, but many did not understand return steps.
Records often missed why they stopped, leaving patients without drugs after 90 days.
Key findings
01Most inactive users felt positively about the home medication program, but their reasons for stopping often did not match program records.
02PHCU files recorded 46 inactive users as not informed; interviews found lack of information, administrative problems, and some user choice.
03Medication delivery stopped after 90 days for inactive users, and most had last consulted 1 to 3 months before the study.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
It was done in one Primary Health Care Unit, so it may not apply to other services. Only inactive users were studied, so it does not say why active users stayed. Of 136 registered inactive users, 24 could not be located and other exclusions occurred, so the interviewed group may not represent all dropouts. Telephone interviews could have limited what users could say, although the authors report that this did not reduce information. It did not measure medication use, clinical worsening, cardiovascular complications, or death, so it cannot show harm from the gaps. The number interviewed (104) and the number of compared indices (111) differ, and some records and reports did not match.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 96.2% positive feeling as proof that the program kept patients on treatment or lowered cardiovascular risk. The study only asked people who had already become inactive, and it did not measure cardiovascular complications or death.