Study questions what we consider an ‘adherent’ patient

MedicalXpress: “A study at Universidad Miguel Hernández (UMH) in Elche shows that patients defined automatically as “adherent” by dint of collecting their prescriptions each month are not necessarily any better than their “non-adherent” peers at actually taking their medication…. The main finding, then, was that lack of adherence even among those patients who regularly collected their medication was as high as 32%, based on in-pharmacy physical testing and questionnaires.”

Adherence was best when medications didn’t interfere with daily activities. Surprisingly patients taking five or more different medications were better at following their prescribed treatments. Also surprising was that the study shows that “patients are more likely to stop taking their medication if changes are made to the appearance of either the packaging or the medication, with adherence dropping most significantly when changes were made to the size, shape or colour of the pill itself.” Crazy.