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Table 5 Random examples of accounts how participants (7/18) manage their combined medication and blood monitoring

From: Patients’ views about treatment with combination therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis: a comparative qualitative study

Patient

Management of medication (n = 5 positive attitude, n = 10 ambivalent attitude)

Pilot Patient 1

‘I get used to the tablets and everything and I get used to the injections now as well. So I take MTX on a Wednesday, the injections on a Wednesday and the Folic Acid on a Friday.. I have done it for couple of years now, so I got used to it’.

Patient 3

‘I take one tablet [Leflunomide] every day in the morning and the other one [MTX] I take once a week on Saturdays. When I take MTX, I take it in the morning, and the other one in the afternoon, because I was concerned about mixing both medications at once, so I always keep some time in between. I do not forget the tablets, because once you are sick you know that you depend on this medication, I always remember and my husband is always asking me whether I have taken my medication’.

Patient 5

‘Monday is the day when I take MTX and inject Enbrel under the skin. I call it my ‘bad day’, because I know I have to inject myself, and I hate it. I call it my ‘bad day’ like many working people talk about Monday is their worst day! I take the Folic Acid on Wednesday and that is me done for the rest of the week. The monthly blood taking is the down side of this new treatment, it is a real pain’.

Patient 6

‘I put like a timer on my phone to remind me, so I remember to take them [medication]. I got other tablets to take with it [RA medication], I just find it a lot of medication to be taken every day, as I said I got high blood pressure as well… it is hard, it is kind of like make myself do it…I feel like a walking chemist sometimes’.

Patient 7

‘I know my colleagues laughed when I told them that I went to Boots to buy a Dosette Box. I would be lost without my Dosette Box and ‘Pharmacy to you’, these are my two things…it was easier to have a Dosette Box going on holiday, instead of taking umpteen bottles, and keeping it away from a toddler; when I go out for dinner, I grab my evening tablets all at once with me in the handbag’.

Patient 14

‘It is a torture really, because I struggle a lot to get the medications out [of the package], even though I get help sometimes’.

Patient 16

‘The blood monitoring is easy; I just go to the GP. For my injections I actually went to the hospital and was taught how to do it and so that is all fine, no problem’.