Many Patients Diagnosed with Chronic Illness Stop Taking Medicines

June 4, 2004

Source: British Medical Journal Released: Tue 01-Jun-2004, 06:30

Description

Many patients prescribed a medicine for a long term condition, such as

asthma or heart disease, rapidly stop taking their medicines as prescribed,

reveals research.

QUALITY AND SAFETY IN HEALTH CARE

[Patients' problems with new medication for chronic conditions 2004; 13:

172-5]

Many patients prescribed a medicine for a long term condition, such as

asthma or heart disease, rapidly stop taking their medicines as prescribed,

reveals research in Quality and Safety in Health Care.

Most patients reported problems with their medicine. They have a significant

unmet need for further information about their treatment and/or its side

effects, which doctors are failing to address, the findings suggest.

Just under 250 patients from 23 community pharmacies in southern England

took part in the study. All had a long term condition. These included

asthma, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and rheumatoid arthritis.

The patients were surveyed by questionnaire and by telephone, 10 days and a

month after starting a new long term treatment.

Almost a third of patients,10 days after diagnosis, and one in four, a month

after diagnosis, were not taking the new medicines as prescribed. This

included not taking the right dose, and/or at the right time, and/or at the

right frequency. Half of this non-compliance was deliberate at both time

points.

Two thirds of those still taking their medicines after 10 days said they had

a problem with it. And almost the same percentage expressed a " substantial

and sustained need " for further information. By four weeks, this still

applied to half of those surveyed.

Current prescribing and dispensing processes could be much more effective,

the authors venture, while patients cannot foresee what problems they will

have until they start taking their drugs.

They suggest that the NHS should create a new service which would advise and

support patients about treatment during the early phase of a long term

condition.

Click here to view the paper in full:

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