Rational Drug Use in Elderly People

June 27, 2025 updated by: BUSRA ALTINEL, Selcuk University

The Effect of Nursing Interventions Applied at Home for Rational Drug Use and Raising Awareness in Elderly Individuals

Irrational drug use, which is an important public health problem worldwide, is common in the elderly. While irrational drug use negatively affects all age groups, it poses a significant threat to the health of the elderly. This study aims to examine the effects of 8-week interventions, which include training, counseling and awareness-raising nursing practices for rational drug use and awareness development, through home visits to elderly individuals; planned in a randomized controlled experimental design.

The research will be carried out between May-July 2022 in Halkapınar Central Family Health Center located in Konya province Halkapınar district. The study group will be randomly assigned 35 experimental and 35 control groups, a total of 70 elderly individuals. Attempts made for the experimental group for eight weeks; Education through home visits on rational drug use will include counseling, guidance on rational drug use, and the delivery of a medicine box. The control group will continue with the routine applications. Taking into account the right of the control group to be informed about ethics after the post-tests, the training, guide and medicine box will also be given to the control group through home visits given to the experimental group. Data will be collected by face-to-face interview method using the Elderly Information Form, Rational Drug Use Scale and Rational Drug Use Awareness Scale.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

54

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Turkey
    • Selcuklu
      • Konya, Selcuklu, Turkey, 42100
        • Selcuk University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

65 years and older (Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Be 65 years or older
  • Living in Halkapınar
  • Registering with the Central Family Health Centre
  • Be able to speak Turkish

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Having a score below 24 on the Standardized Mini Mental Test
  • Having any communication or medically diagnosed mental problems
  • Being bedridden
  • Having a neurological problem

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Experiment
Education, rational drug use guide and consultancy services will be provided to elderly individuals through home visits.
Behavioral: Education

Rational Drug Use in Elderly Individuals

  1. Training: Through home visits, an average of 30 minutes of training will be given to elderly individuals (drugs, rational drug use, the importance of rational drug use, and what the elderly should do for rational drug use). Question-answer method and visual materials will be used in the training.
  2. Training: An average of 20 minutes of training will be given, including a brief repetition of the topics covered in the first training, via a home visit. Visual materials will be used in the training.
Other: Rational Drug Use Guide
At the end of the first training, a rational drug use guide will be given to elderly individuals, including the topics explained.
Other: Medicine Box
Elderly individuals will be given a medicine box large enough to be carried in the pocket when appropriate, so that the elderly people do not forget their medicines and use them regularly, with a 7-day medicine compartment that organizes their medicines and a daily (morning, noon, evening and night) medicine box.
Behavioral: Counseling
After the training, counseling services will be given to elderly individuals regarding rational drug use. Within the scope of the counseling service, it will be ensured that the drugs used by the elderly person are regulated and their questions about rational drug use will be answered.
No Intervention: Control
No intervention will be made to the control group, and after the post-test, the rational drug use guide and the medicine box will also be given to the control group.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Using medicine with care
Time Frame: 6 weeks
Rational drug use scale mean scores of elderly individuals
6 weeks
Rational Drug Use Awareness
Time Frame: 6 weeks
Rational Drug Use Awareness Scale mean scores of elderly individuals
6 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Selcuk University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

October 15, 2022

Primary Completion (Actual)

November 30, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

January 30, 2023

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 26, 2022

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 27, 2022

First Posted (Actual)

May 31, 2022

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 2, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 27, 2025

Last Verified

June 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 555444

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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