The roles of informal carers in the management of medication for older care‐recipients

Objective — To document the roles of informal carers in the management of medication for older care‐recipients and to relate this to carers' coping and health. Method — Carers were identified and recruited in randomly selected community pharmacies in England. All pharmacy clients aged over 18 years who were collecting a prescription on behalf of someone aged 60 years or more, and were unpaid as a carer, were invited to participate in a home interview. Data were collected in structured interviews. Recruitment of carers in the pharmacies and home interviews were undertaken by teams of local interviewers. Setting — Four randomly selected health authority areas in England stratified according to the proportion of the population aged over 65 years, proportion of the population from ethnic minority groups and socio‐economic status. Key findings — Carers undertook between one and 10 medication‐related activities (median=6), ranging from contact with surgeries and pharmacies to clinical decision‐making in the home. Different levels of involvement in, and approaches to, medication‐related activities were described by carers in the context of their relationship with the care‐recipient. The total number of medication‐related activities was positively correlated with carer strain and negatively correlated with social functioning and mental health. Conclusion — Support for informal carers is a priority for the British Government which recognises their important contribution to health care. In documenting the medication‐related assistance provided by carers this paper identifies key considerations for the pharmacy profession in developing carer‐centred pharmacy services.