AER-COMED (sub-project 6): Difficulties of older people with rheumatoid arthritis with medication adherence

The aim of subproject 6 is to investigate the causes of inappropriate drug treatment and its consequences from the patient’s perspective. To this end, 40 rheumatoid arthritis patients over the age of 70 will be interviewed. Potential respondents will be identified from the RABBIT register, which currently has around 2,000 patients over the age of 70. When selecting the interview partners, care is taken to ensure the greatest possible heterogeneity of patients in terms of gender, age, place of residence, therapies, duration of illness, etc. The interviews are conducted and recorded by experienced qualitative researchers. They will then be transcribed and pseudonymised. The data from the interviews will be analysed using MAXQDA software and qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz. The results of the content analysis will be merged with the data from the RABBIT register. It will be investigated whether specific patient characteristics predispose to medication misuse.