Ege Üniversitesi Hemşirelik Yüksekokulu İZMİR Background: This study is performed to investigate the effect of individual education, given to the elders having chronic disorders, on drug usage adaptation.
Materials and Methods: This study, which is executed in GürçeÅŸme Zübeyde Hanım Rest Home of Izmir Municipality, is a quasi-experimental examination. The mean scores of the overall knowledge of the elders, associated with drugs, were obtained by checking the patients’ prescriptions and by using “Pre-test Questionnarie About The Drug Usage of Elders” while the mean scores of pre-education drug adaptation’s were obtained by checking the patients’ prescriptions and counting the remaining drugs. Afterwards, “Individual Drug Usage Education” is given. The mean scores of drug adaptation and overall knowledge of the elders were obtained by using “Post-test Questionnarie About The Drug Usage of Elders” and counting the drugs 15 days and 6 months after the education to determine the effectiveness of education. The study sample has comprised 60 participants that matched the entrycriteria to the study. Data were evaluated using the importance test for the difference between the pairs and correlation analysis.
Results and Conclusion: There was significant difference between both the mean scores of drug adaptation before education and drug adaptation 15 days following the education and between the mean scores of drug knowledge before education and drug knowledge 15 days following education. However, the difference between the mean scores of drug adaptation after 15 days and 6 months following education and drug knowledge were not statistically significant. Thus, it is recomended to give “individual drug using education” to the elderly.
Keywords : Education of elders, Drug using adaptation, Using drug by oneself