[Survey on the Attitudes and Concerns of Nursing Home Staff Regarding Assistance of Medication Administrations in Japan: A Questionnaire Survey]

Care workers at care facilities play an important role in providing medication-administration assistance, and in medication risk management. Nevertheless, research has not made clear the specific concerns that care workers have at work sites, as well as the extent of their burdens. Thus, we conducted a questionnaire survey from October 1 through October 31, 2014 for staff who provide medication-administration assistance at for-pay elderly person homes about the concrete concerns and burdens with regards to the assistance. A total of 1677 respondents were analyzed: 228 nurses and 1449 care workers. Results showed that the care workers had a variety of problems and issues. These included the fact that, since care workers are not medical profession, they were unable to answer questions that the facility residents asked about their medications; they had concerns regarding their own lack of awareness of the efficacies of medications, and as to whether certain drugs were inappropriate for certain patients with swallowing dysfunctions; they wondered whether drugs in tablet forms had to be crushed before administration. They also encountered pharmacological-related issues, including whether administration times and numbers failed to match the lifestyle patterns of facility residents, and so forth. It is presumed that, with active intervention of pharmacists within facilities, these issues could be resolved. Study results, thus, suggested the need for system creation whereby pharmacists can become deeply involved in medication-administration assistance along with the care workers within facilities.