CEC successfully completes national study addressing the growing problem of misuse of medication among ethnocultural seniors

OTTAWA, September 10, 2000

--The project "Use and Misuse of Drugs by Seniors: A Cross-Cultural Education Model" helped to create awareness about the problem of drugs use and misuse among seniors in general and ethnic seniors in particular, and provide culturally appropriate strategies for prevention and intervention. The project was carried out by the CEC in collaboration with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and Ukrainian Canadian Congress-Saskatchewan Provincial Council. This 18-month project was funded by Population Health Fund, Health Canada.

The goals of the project were to identify and disseminate information regarding the need of ethnocultural seniors to fully comprehend medication use and misuse; to develop and design culturally appropriate prevention and intervention methods and to increase the capacity of health care providers to deliver culturally competent care.

A training kit was prepared with the active involvement of a variety of stakeholders - ethnocultural seniors, nurses, pharmacists, doctors, community leaders, social workers - in the design and development of the training materials. The kit includes a resource and training manual, a model medication card for ethnocultural seniors, checklists to help seniors use medication safely, multilingual materials and other useful information on selected topics. Also included is a brochure highlighting the achievements and contributions of seniors selected from diverse cultural backgrounds, which was designed and developed for the year 1999, designated as the International Year of Older Persons.

About one hundred health care providers were successfully trained in 7 centres across Canada - Halifax, Montreal, Saskatoon, St. John's, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, using the train-the-trainers approach.

The Training Kit will not only serve as an excellent reference for community health professionals requiring information on medication use and misuse by ethnocultural seniors, but also as a guide for conducting workshops within the communities at various levels. The CEC believes that it will help to increase the health care provider's chances of being accurately understood in a variety of cultures. The more culturally-defined strategies the health care provider possesses, the more likely it is that he/she will make the right choice in every cultural setting.