IN THE face of mainstream media highlighting the plight of nursing home residents being plied with excess doses of psychotropics to control their behaviour, two research pharmacists and a research nurse have developed a tool to assist.
Their published paper is titled 'Psychotropic medicines use in Residents And Culture: Influencing Clinical Excellence (PRACTICE) tool - A development and content validation study'.
Sydney University pharmacists Mouna Sawan and Timothy F. Chen from the School of Pharmacy together with nurse researcher Yun-Hee Jeon from the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, identified a gap in existing tools to manage the link between organisational culture and the use of psychotropic medicines.
Organisational culture was named as a "key factor" contributing to the high level of use of prescribed psychotropics in nursing homes.
The new tool is designed to help "inform managers and policy makers to identify target areas for improvement to create a culture of appropriate psychotropic prescribing in nursing homes".
CLICK HERE for the abstract.
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