IMPROVING MEDICATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ELDERLY

药物不依从性是一个普遍的，多方面的问题， 长老 这通常是由于沟通不好造成的， 与年龄相关的认知能力下降。 我们计划改进 通过扩展的药物说明进行沟通， 有效地补充标签，因为它们更完整， 组织严密 拟议的研究将扩大我们的工作， 组织扩展指令。 根据目前的理论， 指令处理，我们将检查指令的影响 组织关于老年人和年轻人的理解和记忆 药物说明（以及他们对这些益处的认识），以及 他们对服药时间表的遵守情况 我们还将研究 这些指导因素的效果取决于药物（时间表 复杂性和动机因素。 我们将测试药物说明是否与读者的要求兼容。 服药的模式比不兼容的更有效 指令 这些实验测量了 药物信息，说明书的理解和回忆， 理解和回忆的自我评估，以及对这些的偏好 指令 我们还测试兼容的扩展指令是否更多 比标签更有效地促进依从性。 实验1考察 年轻人和老年人的服药模式。 实验2 检查指令的文本格式是否与 图式最容易理解，记忆最准确。 实验3 - 4检查具有显式格式的指令是否最多 有效 实验5也考察了视觉图形对认知的影响 作为文本格式对教学理解和记忆的影响。 最后两 实验直接比较处方标签和扩大 指令 实验6检验这些指令传达的效果如何 多种药物治疗方案。 实验7测试如果扩展 说明在促进遵守复杂的 时间表。 实验应该收敛，以表明指令更容易 当它们明确地向匹配的组织发出信号时， 读者的任务模式 它们应该会带来更有效的药物 指导，这反过来又应该提高遵守，使老年人可以 独立生活的时间更长。

Medication nonadherence is a pervasive, multidimensional problem among elders. It is often caused by poor communication practices and age-related declines in cognitive abilities. We plan to improve communication through Expanded Medication Instructions, which should effectively complement labels because they are more complete and can be well-organized. The proposed research will expand our work on the organization of expanded instructions. Drawing on current theories of instruction processing, we will examine the influence of instruction organization on how well older and young readers understand and remember medication instructions (and their awareness of these benefits), and on how well they adhere to medication schedules. We will also examine if the effects of these instructional factors depend on medication (schedule complexity) and motivation factors. We will test if medication instructions that are compatible with readers' schemas for taking medication are more effective than less compatible instructions. The experiments measure the mental representation of medication information, comprehension and recall of instructions, self-assessment of comprehension and recall, and preferences for these instructions. We also test if compatible expanded instructions are more effective than labels in promoting adherence. Experiment 1 examines young and older subjects' schemas for taking medication. Experiment 2 examines if instructions with text formats that are compatible with the schema(s) are understood most easily and remembered most accurately. Experiments 3-4 examine if instructions with explicit formats are most effective. Experiment 5 examines the influence of visual-graphic as well as text formats on instruction comprehension and memory. The final two experiments directly compare prescription labels and expanded instructions. Experiment 6 examines how well these instructions convey multiple medication schedules. Experiment 7 tests if expanded instructions are more effective in promoting adherence to complex schedules. The experiments should converge to show that instructions are more easily processed when they explicitly signal the organization that matches the reader's task schema. They should lead to more effective medication instructions, which in turn should improve adherence, so that elders can lead independent lives for a longer time.