Oct2013_GET TO KNOW YOUR HEALTH

Medication Adherence

This month’s article may seem a little less interesting at first however it will have the greatest possible impact on your health compared to any of the others written so far. Adherence in medicine describes the degree to which a patient correctly follows medical advice.

This article is going to focus on medication adherence and why it is important and what everyone can do to help themselves or others out. Medication adherence usually refers to whether patients take their medications as prescribed (e.g. twice daily), as well as whether they continue to take a prescribed medication.

It sounds easy, it should be easy, only one thing to do, take this wee little pill every day.  Unfortunately the reality of this situation is that it is anything but a simple task to do.  Even personally, after day four of my antibiotic course I would sit down to eat lunch, only to remember that I needed to take my anti-biotic 30 minutes before food.  This situation is not uncommon and it will get worse, because every single person who is reading this, it is a fact of life that as we get older we will take more medication and medication non-adherence increases once this happens.

The World Health Organisation study on medication adherence estimated that 50% of people with chronic conditions are non-adherent to their medications.  What makes this more difficult is that while 97% of people reported themselves to be adherent, a study showed that when monitored (via a device on the medication), the number on average came out 25% lower.  An amazing example of non-adherence is after a myocardial Infarction (and no I didn’t just swear at you). Otherwise known as a heart attack, the standard medication regime after this consists of 3 drugs.  If taken correctly these 3 drugs will lead to an 80% reduction in death related to coronary artery disease, however after 6 months up to 50% of people in the study were no longer adherent to this simple regime.  I don’t know about you but this is like Arnold Schwarzenegger leaning down and saying, “COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE,” and you responding with, “No thanks, I’ll be right.”

This adherence issue is worsened when the disease is “silent.”  This means it’s easy to remember to take pain killers because you start to feel pain.  However remembering to take your cholesterol lowering tablets or diabetes medication is harder because when they stop working you don’t feel high cholesterol or get an acute attack of diabetes.  Another amazing statistic is one that affects whether or not I even get to see the patient in the first place.  In this study, 75,000 prescriptions were issued however only 78% of these were ever filled, that leaves 22% of people never even filling their prescription.  This rate increases in relation to new medication prescriptions, and the worst rates relate to medications used to treat high blood pressure (28.4%), high cholesterol (28.2%) and diabetes (31.4%).

Luckily, this presents the largest and one of the simplest areas with which to concentrate on to improve a patient’s condition.  Everyone involved with this agrees that improving adherence is a multifactorial issue, however it really comes down to just one underlying factor.  

Communication!

Effective communication will help the patient and the health care practitioner better understand the needs of the other party and this will ultimately lead to better medical advice and better adherence to that advice.  Cost and motivation are both issues as well however given the correct communication both of these can be overcome or worked around.

Some quick handy tips to help your medication adherence:

Take your pills at a time that coincides with routine tasks such as brushing teeth, eating meals, going to bed, etc.

Reduce the number of times a day tablets need to be taken – ask your doctor or pharmacist

Use an alarm – most phones or watches can be used to set an alarm (or multiple)

Get a dosette device – get a weekly pill box or ask the pharmacy to pack and manage the medicines for you.

This article is meant to help people understand that no one is perfect when it comes to their health and adherence, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of (especially in front of healthcare professionals).  If there is anything anyone ever wants to know about their health or medication, the pharmacy is a great place to start.  From there it could lead to the doctors or simply back home with information that will hopefully lead you to better understanding and hence adherence to your health advice. 

As always, if you have any questions or want more advice, don’t hesitate to drop into the pharmacy or see another local health care professional.

Written by Andrew Harvey (Your local pharmacist), 

Dayboro Pharmacy  Phone 3425 1435

Mon – Fri 8.30am – 5.30pm    Sat 8.30am – 12.30pm