Jane: Knowing about multiple medicines – Important considerations when searching for information
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Jane
Female
Age at interview: 53
Number of medicines: 8
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Jane emphasises the importance of knowing about medicines, keeping records and having a trusted friend or family member at medical appointments if necessary.
I think to be educated about what you're taking. When those things are introduced, the doctor, I think, explains it to you but you're not well enough to remember or to even understand it. That was the case with me. Having my husband with me when I was really unwell, he knew what I needed to do and what I needed to take and when I needed to take it. So, I felt like I had a backstop there. That was very helpful and the doctor writing out for me, you know ... when we've changed anything, he's always written that out and that ... I would ask people to, encourage people to ask their doctor about that, because I think that was really helpful …
And I just keep asking questions and I go with my little post-it note, you know, to remember what side effects I've had of things. And I'm a person who keeps a journal or a diary and I would certainly encourage people, when they're starting on medication, to actually have it. Even if it's just a chart that's given out of what you took, when you took it and what the side effects were … not just going to the doctor, taking a tablet and then going, ‘OK. I've done that!’ but the hard work, I guess, of saying, ‘Well, how is this going to impact my day, my routines? If I'm having trouble with that ... I guess some ideas of how I could adjust those things or monitor them ... to trust your doctor very much. I think the longer I've been on medication, the more I go, ‘OK. He really knew what he was doing.’ I'd want to encourage people to just hang in there and to do it and, if you need family to remind you to do things or help doing them, to say this is actually a good strategy in treatment and management of my depression.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.