Patients’ perspective on self-administration during hospitalisation - a qualitative pilot study

Abstract

Background, aims and objectives: Many patients have a desire to have more influence on their course of treatment. The Danish Healthcare System is under development with a focus on patient involvement. Self-administration is a very important part of the whole concept of patient involvement. This pilot study aimed to investigate Danish patients’ attitudes towards and experience of the concept of self-administration during hospitalisation

Method: A qualitative design with semi-structured, one-to-one interviews was used. Data were collected by one author (TEM) from March 2018 to April 2018. Included patients were all part of the intervention group from a randomised controlled trial. These patients were self-administrating their own medicine during hospitalisation.

Results: In total, 8 patients agreed to be interviewed. One patient withdrew his consent during the interview, resulting in 7 interviews for analysis. No patients declined to participate. Interviews were, on average, 22 minutes in duration. From the analysed data, 3 major themes emerged: “Self-management = self-administration?”, “Ready, set, self-administration” and “Once self-administration, always self-administration?”

Conclusion: This pilot study indicates that the patients have a very positive attitude towards and experience of self-administration during hospitalisation, as self-administration allowed them to regain control of their medicine and gave them a sense of independence and safety. All patients would prefer to be self-administering their own medicine rather than handing over the responsibility to the nurse in a future hospitalisation, due to the positive experience it has given them. Future studies are needed to confirm these findings.