IMPROVING MEDICATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ELDERLY

药物不依从性是一个普遍的、多层面的问题 长辈们。它通常是由不良的沟通习惯和 与年龄相关的认知能力下降。我们计划改进 通过扩展的用药说明进行沟通，这应该 有效地补充标签，因为它们更完整，可以 组织严密。拟议的研究将扩大我们在 组织扩展说明。借鉴当前的理论 指令处理，我们将考察指令的影响 关于年长和年轻读者理解和记忆程度的组织 用药说明(以及他们对这些益处的认识)，以及 他们遵守服药时间表的程度。我们还将检查是否 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。 我们将测试是否与读者的用药说明兼容 服药方案比相容程度低的方案更有效 指示。这些实验测量的是心理表征 药物信息、对说明的理解和回忆， 对理解和回忆的自我评估，以及对这些的偏好 指示。我们还测试兼容的扩展指令是否更多 在促进遵守方面比标签更有效。实验1检验了 年轻和年长受试者的服药图式。实验二 检查文本格式的指令是否与 图式(S)最容易理解，也最准确地记住。 实验3-4检验具有显式格式的指令是否最多 有效。实验5也考察了视觉图形的影响 作为文本格式对指令的理解和记忆。最后两名 实验直接比较处方标签和扩展 指示。实验6检验了这些指令的传达情况 多个用药时间表。实验7测试是否扩展 说明在促进遵守复杂规则方面更有效 日程表。 实验应该融合起来，以表明指令更容易 当它们显式地向与 读者的任务架构。它们应该会导致更有效的药物治疗 指示，这反过来应该提高遵从性，这样老年人就可以 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.