Jane: The attitudes of others – Taking ‘many’ medicines (1)
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Jane
Female
Age at interview: 53
Number of medicines: 8
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Jane was questioned about the number of medicines she took when she was just starting antidepressants and coming to terms with them.
Jane:
I remember being away on a weekend, a weekend away with a group of women and, at that stage, I'd just started on the first antidepressant and we were juggling the number of tablets I took, so instead of having two large ones, I was having nine or twelve small ones in one go and a person said to me, ‘What are you taking all those for? Surely you don't need to take all of those!’ That made me think, ‘OK. Maybe I need to go and do that in private and not let people see.’
Jacqueline:
When that lady on the weekend away said … questioned the number of tablets you were taking and whether you needed them or not, how did you respond?
Jane:
I was shocked and thought, ‘Well, I need them. Big deal! And yeah, it is a lot of tablets, but … yeah’. In one sense, I maybe was just a bit matter-of-fact about it and, ‘Yep, this is what I take and they’re working!’ I figure if you say it's working, people accept that a lot more and go, ‘Oh, OK. She needs them,’ but yeah ... I did feel that was quite judgemental.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.