Perspectives on medication safety from vulnerable older migrants and their relatives—A qualitative explorative study

Abstract

Little is known about the combined effect of several risk factors occurring simultaneously, and the perspectives of patients with language barriers or dementia are lacking because these patients are often excluded as research participants. This study aimed at investigating medication safety among older migrants with cognitive disorders who use five or more medications daily from the perspective of older patients and their relatives. Eight semi-structured interviews with patients and relatives were conducted in their homes. The study adopted an inductive hermeneutic phenomenological approach and used both "Analyzing the present" and "Systematic text condensation" as inspiration for the analysis. Three main themes were identified: (i) potential medication safety and threats, (ii) communication and missing medication information and (iii) everyday life with medication. Threats to medication safety included medication perceptions, health perceptions, and cognitive impairment of the patient as well as miscommunication among departments, wrong diagnosis and medication, and unlocked medication cabinets. However, most families expressed having no problems concerning medication, which could be a result of limited engagement of the patient and relatives in the medical treatment and limited medication information provided to the families by healthcare professionals.