Multidisciplinary care influences concordance
Patients who are cared for by multidisciplinary teams are beginning to receive mixed messages about their medicines, according to research into patient choice and medicine-taking commissioned by the Pharmacy Practice Research Trust as part of its Medicines and People Programme.
“What goes on in a consultation is not only affected by the people
in that consultation but by the context in which it takes place,” said
Sue Ambler, director of the trust, at a meeting to discuss the research
in London this week.
Kristian Pollock, senior research fellow at the School of Nursing, Nottingham
University, commented that increased specialisation works against patients
because professionals are wary of conveying inconsistent information. “Once
patients are in specialist care, conversations are constrained by their
relationships with other specialists,” she said. She added that
there is an entrenched professional culture that inhibits disclosure
between professionals and patients. She would like to see patients engaged
in a meaningful way so that the system is open to what they perceive
their needs to be.
Rob Horne, professor of psychology in healthcare at the University of
Brighton, commented that pharmacists and other health professionals want
to be more responsive to patients’ needs but often do not know
how to be. “We need to empower and equip pharmacists to respond
to [patients’ needs],” he said. |
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