MEDICINE USAGE IN OLD PEOPLE AND THE ROLE OF NURSE

This cross-sectional study was conducted between December-March 2008 in order to determine chronic illness prevalence of old people in rest home, knowledge level of them about medicine usage and the role of nurses. Data were collected with SMMT, Old People Presentation Form, evaluated by using SPSS program with percentage, chi-square, one-way variance analysis (ANOVA). 55,43% of 92 people living in Çankırı İsmail Özdemir Rest Home are women, 44,56% of them are men. Average score of 62 people who took more than 24 points from SMMT was found 27,10. 53,2% of old people are not literate. The most common chronic illness is hypertension (54,8%) and the most frequently used medicines are antihypertensives. In our study, frequency of chronic and multiple illnesses draw attention. It is found that 43,5% of the old people had more than 3 illnesses. Most of the people participated to the study use more than one medicines and have been using them for a long time. Psychiatric defect diagnosis was found in 24,2% of the old people. Old people taking more than four medicines daily are 54,8%. It was determined that 59,7% of the old people did not pay attention to the expiration date of medicine and the relation between educational level and situation of paying attention to the expiration date of medicine was statistically significant (p<0,05). A positive relation was seen between educational level and cognitive function. 32,60% of the old people staying in rest home took less than 24 points from SMMT 22,5% of the people who did not pass the test are women, 52,5% of them are men and psychiatric defect was also found along with dementia in 66,6% of them.

KEY WORDS: Dementia, geriatrics, nursing, drug using, elderly