Associations between personality traits and adequate home storage of drugs in older patients

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the association between personality traits of older patients and adequate home storage of drugs. Forty-four participating Dutch community pharmacists randomly selected each up to four community-dwelling elderly patients (≥65 years) who were using at least one prescription drug. The Big Five Inventory was used to assess the personality traits–‘openness’, ‘conscientiousness’, ‘extraversion’, ‘agreeableness’ and ‘neuroticism’–of patients. An assessment of adequate home storage of drugs was made using a summed composite score for each patient ranging from zero (adequate storage) to three (inadequate storage) was based on storage criteria representing quality, information and level of storage organization. A 51.2% of the patients stored drugs adequately in accordance with all quality (“Q“) and information (“I“) criteria. A high level of drug storage organization was found in 70.8% of patients. Forty-three patients (31.4%) stored their drugs adequately based on all storage criteria (composite storage score 0). No associations between personality dimensions and adequate drug storage were found. Having a lower number of drugs was associated with adequate drug home storage (ORadjusted 0.86; 95% CI: 0.77–0.96). In conclusion, this study suggests that personality is not associated with adequate home storage of drugs in older patients.