Medication Education for the younger patient

[NCindasun21]

Greetings!

I'm an RN on an acute child and adolescent psychiatric unit.

I'm looking for ways to educate my patients about their medications. When working with adults it's pretty straight-forward but with kids you have to get a little more creative.

The higher ups like us to do education in a group setting and that can get a little dicey when it comes to protecting a patient's privacy. Heck, the kids will say "I take that pill" at the drop of the hat!

I've thought about making up a game, coloring sheets, or something along those lines. Does anyone have experience with this or know of good resources?

Thanks a bunch!

[Meraki]

I think group education on meds for young kids would be a challenge. For kids we make them each up a pill info card that has a picture of the pill (or empty capsule glued to the paper) and age appropriate info about the meds.

We do group med education for teens - it is generic - we teach about the different categories of meds (SSRI's etc..), side effects, importance of compliance, interactions with drugs/alcohol etc... usually it is activity based, not a lecture. If a teen says - hey I take that - it's not an issue - their choice to disclose their meds or not. Most of the teens talk amongst themselves about what they take anyways! You can set ground rules at the start about not asking others what they take and no need to share.