Parents' Perspectives on Using a Family Medication Safety Plan Designed to Promote Appropriate Opioid Prescription Practices with Adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Research has underscored the vulnerability of adolescents to opioid misuse, creating a call-to-action for researchers and practitioners to identify ways to reduce the youths' risk of opioid misuse. While strategies have previously been proposed, few studies have targeted and designed interventions for adolescents and their families. The Family Medication Safety Plan (FMSP) was developed to provide families with a tool to encourage early education, conversation, and promote safe use of prescription opioid medications in their homes.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to understand parent perceptions of using the Family Medication Safety Plan for potential opioid prescriptions and identify opportunities for wide-spread application and improvement.

METHODS: Parent living in the US with access to a webcam-enabled computer were recruited via social media, email listservs, snowball sampling, and Qualtrics research panels. Parents were given the FMSP and asked to complete the worksheet with their child 12 to 18 years. Parents were then scheduled for a 30-minute, semi-structured interview to elicit feedback. Interviews were transcribed verbatim by professional transcriptionists before being uploaded to NVivo for thematic and content analysis.

RESULTS: Parents (N=59) were interviewed and had positive impressions of using the FMSP in their homes. Prevalent themes identified included how the FMSP format could be modified and how the parents would use it in their family. Many participants identified ways in which different healthcare providers could be used as a resource to make the FMSP more accessible and useful for their family unit.

CONCLUSION: Parents indicated that the FMSP was a beneficial tool for integration and evaluation of safe medication practices in homes. Participants suggested that this tool was most valuable when used for the specific needs of each family, indicating that modifying the FMSP to make it in a more flexible format such that it may improve uptake.