This paper is based on data from the first phase of a 27 month study, looking at patients' medication taking behaviours, beliefs and needs for information. The second phase of this project, which will be commencing early in 2000, will be an advice and information giving intervention, facilitated by community pharmacists.

Information has been collected from patients using a combination of semi-structured telephone interviews and postal surveys, collecting data at 10 days, four weeks and (for a sample of patients) three months after initial recruitment.

Recruitment of patients to the study was through the Moss chain of community pharmacies. This approach to accessing samples of patients, whose illness is being managed within the community, has a number of attendant problems. Problems were rooted in difficulties approaching, and recruiting, eligible patients and were manifested in low levels of recruitment. Problems recruiting seemed to be based around a lack of support to pharmacists, a lack of confidence on the part of pharmacists and difficulties fitting recruitment into an already busy working routine.

The research team adopted the following strategies to overcome these problems;

• Initial one-to-one training with all pharmacists working on the study.
• Training meetings with pharmacists and other pharmacy staff, giving preliminary results, theoretical background to the study and suggestions of ways to help recruitment.
• Regular contact with pharmacists to give feedback and update on recruitment rates.
• Payment of ten pounds for each patient recruited.

As a result of the initial difficulties in recruiting patients, and the activities which increased recruitment, it became apparent that some pharmacists are more adept at carrying out this work than others. While this may, in part, be due to characteristics of the branch in which they are working the main characteristic seems to be the overall attitude of the pharmacists. In this study we found that 16% (n=4) of pharmacists recruited 59% (n=131) of the patients.

Interviews uncovered a wide range of problems connected to patients' use of their medicines. An initial analysis of interview data found that 60% of patients had needs for further information regarding their medicines and many reported a need for information about more general aspects of their health. Notable levels of non-adherence were also reported. Twenty four percent of the 162 patients interviewed at 10 days after recruitment missed doses of their newly prescribed medicines in the previous week and 12% missed doses of other medicines in the same period.

While initial difficulties were experienced in recruiting patients through community pharmacies, the levels of non-adherence and needs for information about medicines within this population warrants further study. An intervention which can address the information needs of community based patients may significantly improve adherence and subsequent health outcomes within this group.