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The patient interviewed is someone who is between twenty and thirty years old, extremely physically active, and leads a busy lifestyle with many components (such as in academia, lab, volunteer council, athlete leadership). The patient has an illness that involves suppressing flare ups of symptoms. In the home-setting, the patient has three different medications he must self-administer once a day. The daily “ritual” of self-medication usually takes place in the morning, where the patient wakes up, grabs a small bite to eat, then take the medications. Sometimes breakfast is skipped, and this does not happen; the patient likes to keep his medications in his backpack for cases like this, such that if he forgets to take them before leaving home, he can take them at work. The patient admits to having missed or almost forgotten to take medicines due to the busy lifestyle that he leads. The patient does not have trouble distinguishing between the
three different medications, saying that “they all look different and the prescription bottle has the drug name on it”, and he has not made any other kinds of mistakes taking these medications. In the case where the patient has a flare up and becomes hospitalized, the doctor comes in at a set time for the patient to have his medicines and administers via IV or pill form. When asked for last comments on our problem statement, the patient notes that despite his busy lifestyle occasionally causing him to miss taking medications at the usual time, older people will definitely have more complications with their medications than younger people.
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- Doctors
- Characteristics: middle age, very busy, has a lot of patients to deal with, very knowledgable knowledgeable about disease and medicine
- Needs and Goals:
- want to know if patients have taken the medications correctly
- want to know if the medications are effective or have any side effects
- is interested about the progress of the illness
- like direct feedback from patients a lot
- Elderly patients
- Characteristics: old age, may have variable lifestyles to accommodate (ex: sedentary, athletic, active, busy), may have variable physical/mental/emotional capabilities
- Needs and Goals: for the self-medication process to be quick and easy yet hopefully always correct, does not want having to take medication to interfere with lifestyle