Karen: The attitudes of others – Taking ‘many’ medicines (2)
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Karen
Female
Age at interview: 37
Number of medicines: 8
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Karen could respond to her niece and nephew’s questions in a way that was satisfactory to them, but she was taken aback by the same kind of questioning by a work colleague.
Um … they make the kids look easy, honestly! [laughs] I will just … I guess, if anything, I'm probably … with the kids, you know, they're happy with just, ‘This is what I need to do to keep my back healthy and to be able to do stuff with you’, and that's fine.
Adults are a lot more curious. I did have a bit of a ... it was actually ... it was an incident at work where I was in the lunch room and a colleague was asking me stuff about my back and ... but then she asked quite directly, ‘What medication do you take?’ I was a bit taken aback. This is the lunch room of an office with about 100 people. Anyone could come and go and I just said, ‘Look, I'm not prepared to talk about that at work.’ Unfortunately, I was a bit sharp with her and she was upset that she might have offended me, but it was just one of those ... ’OK, having a conversation with you where it's all in context is one thing’ ... though I still probably wouldn't have told her, but in such a public place like a lunch room, where people are coming and going, someone walks in at this point who doesn't know much about me, what conclusions are they going to jump to? It's the first time that someone who I don't know well has been so direct ... has asked so directly, and probably the only time.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.