Short summary

Out-of-hospital medical care services are new temporary central organisational units in Danish municipalities, that intend to provide help to those who can not fend for themselves in their own home. The purpose of this project is to pilot test a survey questionnaire, that will explore success factors associated with transferring the medicine responsibility from the hospital to the out-of-hospital services by taking into account the attitudes of healthcare professionals working in both places.

Rationale

As the Danish population is getting larger and older and more resources are needed to compensate for the labour shortage and pressure the hospitals are undergoing, it is important to expand the healthcare system by involving the municipalities more in the process of treatment, prevention, and care of sick citizens. Out-of-hospital medical care services are relatively newly established units in almost all Danish municipalities (in the 1990s) and constitute two thirds of the total number of bed capacity in Danish hospitals. Patients who still need help after discharge from the hospital are referred to these medical services to be further treated and cared for, whereby the healthcare professionals (HCPs) in municipalities take over the medication responsibility instead of HCPs at the hospitals.

To the best of our knowledge, no studies have investigated how transferring medicine responsibility from HCPs at hospitals to out-of-hospital medical care services is received among HCPs in both sectors, especially their acceptance. The Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA) is a theoretical tool that measures the acceptability of an intervention, and it will be used to cover the success factors of transferring the medicine responsibility from one to the other. The TFA consists of seven domains: Affective attitude, burden, perceived effectiveness, ethicality, intervention coherence, opportunity costs, and self-efficacy.

In this project, we primarily aim to develop and pilot test a survey questionnaire based on the TFA. The pilot test will be done among HCPs on both hospital wards and out-of-hospital medical services.

Description of the cohort

HCPs with medication responsibility from both hospitals and out-of-hospital medical care services.

Data and biological material

We will include 2-3 HCPs from hospitals and 2-3 HCPs from out-of-hospital medical care services in a pilot test, that includes individual cognitive interviews. The final version of the questionnaire will be adjusted based on the results we will get. We will then test the final adjusted version with a larger target audience.

Collaborating researchers and departments

Hospital Pharmacy of Funen, Odense University Hospital

• Adjunkt, Carina Lundby
• Forskningsfarmakonom, Marianne Nielsen
• PostDoc, Camilla Lynnerup
• Professor, Anton Pottegård
• stud.pharm., Walaa Alnabhan