Getting kids to take their medication is a chore, but your pharmacy can help parents keep kids adherent.
Making sure kids follow their medication regimen, not just until they get better, but through the entire course of treatment, is an important and challenging part of treating kids. And offering tips and tricks to help parents get their kids to take their medicine as prescribed can set your business apart for parents.
Here are some ideas that you and parents can use to help kids stay adherent.
1. Address the real issue
To help kids stay adherent, work with parents to discover the real issue preventing kids from taking their medication.
Help parents understand and identify the root cause by asking the right questions, including:
- “Does your child not like the taste?”
- “Does your child have difficulty swallowing pills?”
- “Is your child experiencing any negative side effects from the medication?”
Once you pinpoint the issue, you can work together to find a solution to the real problem, which will prevent you from wasting time trying solutions that won’t fix the actual issue.
2. Offer medication flavoring
Changing the flavor of a bitter-tasting medicine can improve adherence by removing taste as a discouraging factor. And, it gives kids a sense of ownership.
Letting kids choose their favorite flavor gives them an active role in the medicine-taking process. When kids are involved in making choices about their medicine, they develop a sense of ownership and responsibility, which can increase adherence.
Plus, if kids like the taste of the medicine, getting them to take it will be less of a fight, which will make parents happy—and keep kids healthy.
3. Build a rewards system for chronic patients
Consider starting a reward system for kid-patients with chronic conditions.
Each time these kids come into your pharmacy with their parents, give them a point or a small reward, such as a sticker, a fun eraser, or a decorative pencil or pen.
If you host this rewards program in your pharmacy, it will also make kids feel more at ease, and give them a reason to get excited about coming to pick up their medication.
Or, you can help parents implement the system in their home, and teach them how to measure adherence, and reward it.
4. Provide instructional documents
One barrier to adherence for kids is parent confusion about instructions and difficulty sticking with the regimen during daily activities. Once kids leave for school or daycare, it can be difficult for parents to stay on top of the medication regimen.
When you counsel parents about their kids’ medications, be sure to provide typed instructions reiterating everything you already explained. Go beyond the medication instructions that usually come with a prescription. Personalize the document with the patient’s name, for example.
Also, provide extra copies of the instructions so parents can educate daycare facilities, schools and other caretakers about proper dosing, so kids can stay adherent even when their parents can’t be with them. Parents will appreciate this extra effort.
5. Provide brief childcare
When you’re counseling a parent about the dosing instructions for their child’s medication, the sick kid might be their biggest distraction.
Have a small play area in the corner of your counseling room or ask a staff member to babysit the kid for a few minutes, so you can have the parent’s full attention during counseling.
Once parents know their child is safe and being taken care of, they’ll be able to focus on the conversation about the medication. This way you can explain everything the parent needs to know without competing with a sick child for the parent’s attention.
6. Simplify medication regimens
Difficult medication regimens that require administering multiple drugs in multiple formats several times a day are complicated and confusing for parents.
For example, a kid taking medication to manage ADHD might remember to take his morning dose at home, but he may often forget to take his afternoon dose while at school.
Work with the patient’s prescribing physician to simplify regimens, and always use once or twice daily dose medication schedules whenever possible, as this can increase compliance rates by greater than 70 percent, according to “Promoting Medication Adherence in Children,” an article published by the American Family Physician.
Also, investigate other forms to deliver the medication, such as liquid medications and chewable medications, to make the actual consumption simpler for kids.
7. Mask and distract from the taste
For young kids, a bad taste can be the biggest hurdle to adherence, and to overcome this, advise parents to focus on finding ways to mask and distract kids from the taste.
For example, suggest that parents give their kid half of an ice pop or ice cream to suck on before they administer the medication. The sweet treat will help mask the flavor, and the cold will numb their taste buds. Plus, the promise of getting the other half of the treat after they take their medication will distract from the taste.
Or, tell parents to put the liquid medication in the refrigerator to chill it, which will help dull the taste. Also, the previously mentioned article from the American Family Physician notes that chasing medication with chocolate helps mask the bitter taste, so advise patients to wash down a dose with a piece of candy.
You can also suggest that parents try to distract their child by using kid-friendly dispensers shaped like animals or characters. Carry these devices in your pharmacy and recommend them to parents with sick kids to help distract young kids from the medicine by adding a sense of play to the process.
Keep parents and their kids coming to your pharmacy by making your pharmacy kid-friendly.
