Question

No plagiarism or bullet points please

Conduct a literature search on the topic "patient compliance" (patient adherence). Write a one page summary of the factors that contribute to poor patient compliance and develop several strategies that you believe will improve medication compliance by patients. How would set out to study the benefits of a new educational intervention on improving medication taking for depression patients? What type of study design? Outcome measures?

Answer 1

#. Adherence

Extent to which a person's behavior coincides with medical or health advice

Extent to which dose, frequency, and timing of

medication matches what was prescribed

Other terms

- Compliance

Are people nonadherent :-

• Overwhelming evidence that people are

nonadherent to medications

• 30‐50% of people nonadherent to medication

Why should we be concerned about nonadherence:-

• Cost of medication nonadherence each year in the US

- $100‐$300 billion

- 10% of hospital admissions in older adults

- 23% of nursing home admissions

- 125,000 deaths

#. Implications of nonadherence

• Patients - Can prevent them from reaching goals

• Providers - May not meet performance goals

• Pharmacies - Less revenue

• Drug companies - Less revenue

• Payers - More expenses

• Employers - Lower productivity

#. Types of nonadherence

• Never filling the prescription

• Taking the incorrect dose

• Incorrect timing of dose

• Missing dose or extra dose

• Stopping before provider intended

#. Patterns of nonadherence

• Close to perfect adherence

• Nearly all doses but some incorrect timing

• Occasionally miss dose and some incorrect timing

• Occasionally miss dose and drug holidays 3‐4 times/year

• Frequently miss dose and drug holidays 1 time/month

• Miss most doses

#. Reasons patients give for not adhering to their medications

• General concerns about medication

• Wanted to try lifestyle modification instead

• Fear of side effects

• Didn't think medication was needed

• Didn't think condition was life threatening

• Fear of drug interactions

• Didn't want to take any more medications

• Cost

• Side effects

• Didn't think drug would help

• Didn't think they needed it

• Drug didn't help

• Don't like taking medications

• Condition improved

• Take too many medications

#. Strategies to maintain compliance are :-

- Health education

- Explaining about the side effects that will occur due to non - adherence

- Provision of facilities that hinder adherence .