1. What is medication Compliance?
Describes the degree to which a patient correctly follows medical advice. Most commonly, it refers to medication or drug compliance, but it can also apply to other situations such as medical device use, self-care, self-directed exercises, or therapy sessions. Ideally, patients should be taking all of their medications as prescribed. Adherence is often considered to be “good”, or patients are described as “adherent”, if they regularly take their medications thus signifies that the patient and physician collaborate to improve the patient’s health by integrating the physician’s medical opinion and the patient’s lifestyle, values and preferences for care. Often, the terms adherence and compliance are used interchangeably.
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It is clear, however, that often patients fail to adhere to prescribed medications, leading to unwelcomed clinical and economic consequences. There are a variety of reasons why patients do not adhere to their prescribed medication regimens. One conceptual model of barriers to adherence describes patient, prescriber and health care system factors. Each model highlights the fact that the medication use process is affected by many factors in patients, including drug- and patient-related factors such as patient representations of their illness, cognitive function, and medication side effects, as well as other factors (eg, patient-prescriber relationships). Furthermore, because patients often suffer from multiple comorbid conditions and thus use more medications, medication non-adherence can have drastic deleterious health effects on the patient. Therefore, finding potential areas for interventions to help improve this process should be a top priority of healthcare …show more content…
Reasons For non-compliance
• Denial of the problem. Many diseases and conditions are easy to ignore, even when they have been diagnosed. This is particularly true for diseases that are asymptomatic, meaning they don't have noticeable symptoms that bother the patient. For example, patients with diabetes, or hypertension (high blood pressure) may not have symptoms that get in the way of everyday life. You may not even have known you had the condition until it showed up on a routine examination. That makes it easy for patients to ignore the prescribed treatment regimens. Non-compliance can, of course, have dire consequences.
• The cost of the treatment. Your medications and therapies may or may not be covered by insurance, and the more out-of-pocket cost to the patient, the less you are likely to adhere to buying the drugs or making treatment appointments.
• The difficulty of the regimen. Patients may have trouble following the directions. For example, taking a pill in the middle of the night, or simply opening the "child safe" container may create a barrier to
Some of these problems may be financial, psychological or medical. The economic challenges include incurring extra expenses on the solving issues that arise from the social aspects. Such issues could have been solved if the social aspects of minimizing trauma had been integrated into the medical model. Psychological challenges include stress and depression. Possible medical problems that may befall the patient include ill health and chronic diseases. In some instances, the body may develop an immunity system that is resistant to drugs. For this reason, the patient develops a condition whereby they have to be put on constant medication (Cheeseman,
Almost everybody on Long Island, and probably all around the world, has been prescribed a drug by a doctor before— whether it was to knock out a nasty virus, or relieve pain post injury or surgery. However, what many people don’t realize is that these drugs can have highly addictive qualities, and more and more people are becoming hooked, specifically teenagers. But when does harmlessly taking a prescription drug to alleviate pain take the turn into the downward spiral of abuse? The answer to that question would be when the user begins taking the drug for the “high” or good feelings brought along with it—certainly not what it was prescribed for (1). The amount of teens that abuse prescription medications has been rapidly increasing in recent
The geriatric population is rapidly growing as individuals continue to benefit from medical advances and pharmaceutical treatments. A large number of this population will need to take some form of medication to maintain a functional lifestyle. Multiple medications can affect the elderly population differently than younger generations. This paper will discuss how polypharmacy impacts geriatrics and the will focus specifically on analgesics and antihistamines. It will also examine demographic factors, changes within the aging body, prescription and nonprescriptive medications, and the role of the nurse practitioner when caring for these patients.
According to the American College of Preventative Medicine (2011), non-adherence to medications is estimated to cause 125,000 deaths annually and overall, about 20% to 50% of patients are non-adherent to medical therapy. Through my personal experience working in the healthcare field, I have observed an increasing number of patients seemingly detached from the seriousness of their medical diagnoses, as the majority of my patients have taken very little personal responsibility in their own healing and overall health. While these patients have a variety of medical issues, they do share similar characteristics: disengagement from their medical diagnoses and taking the necessary steps towards healing, health and vitality. In my work or in my clinical experiences, I get frustrated when patients are
Other factors that influence treatment adherence are the following: the symptoms of illness, such as hypomanic denial, psychosis, comorbid disorders, personality disorders, and substance abuse disorders. Side effects of medications and unfavorable personal attitudes toward treatment may also have a great negative impact on treatment adherence. The effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions to enhance adherence will allow the ability to address the factors that are changeable and most relevant to treatment adherence in a given individual. These factors will undoubtedly differ depending on the individual 's psychiatric symptoms, medication response patterns, age, gender, and cultural
The rise in cost of prescription drugs affects all sectors of the health care industry, including private insurers, public programs, and patients. Spending on prescription drugs continues to be an important health care concern, particularly in light of rising pharmaceutical costs and the aging population. Prescription drugs have grown to become an essential component of health care. For millions of Americans, prescription drugs are necessary to their health and ability to function in society. While prescriptions are a relatively small portion of overall health spending, they are a main reason for certain health spending trends, growing almost twice as fast all other health services in recent years. Prescription costs can be the costliest expense in your budget, especially if you are on a fixed income. The wealthy can easily afford their medications, but for an increasing population such as the elderly, choosing among purchasing medication, paying bills, or buying food is a real concern.
Prescription drugs do not always cause addiction, but a specific group of prescription narcotics can increase dependency on the medication and cause a severe addiction. For many people that become addicted to prescribed medicines, it changes their life forever. Prescription drugs are equally as dangerous as street drugs, if not more so. High powered pain relievers are safe if taken properly, but some people pop multiples a day which can cause coma and even death.
Prescription drug abuse has become a major epidemic across the globe, shattering and affecting many lives of young teenagers. Many people think that prescription drugs are safer and less addictive than “street drugs.” After all, these are drugs that moms, dads, and even kids brothers and sisters use. The dangers are not easily seen, but the future of our youth will soon be in severe danger if the problem is not addressed,it will continue to get worse if action is not taken soon. Prescription drugs are only supposed to be consumed by patients who have been examined and have a medical report by a professional, more and more teens are turning to the family’s medicine cabinet to “get high” but what they are actually doing is severely harming themselves, kids today are turning away from the street drugs and abusing the “prescribed” drugs that are that are at their very own home.
This relationship can be successfully built in the presence of appropriate communication. The positive correlation has been found between the patients’ adherence and the good communication in various recent studies. It means that the effective communication can make the patients understand the details of their illness, get a knowledge about the steps to be taken in order to cure it and get motivation to keep up their morale (Bakken et al., 2000).
Studies indicate patients who challenge their chronic illness and vigorously manage their treatment have enhanced their attitude and life enjoyment. Above all, the patient must be sanctioned to manage care and treatment (Cristcot Inc., 2014; Lamas, 2014).
Patients are feel difficulty of medication compliance in long term treatment because patient have to be a regular on their medication. However, old people also require an extra attention on medication compliance because sometime noncompliance create a critical situation for them. Sometime patient takes a few dosage of medication and they stop taking medication as soon as they feel well which create a complication on long run. The implications of non-adherence are evident in the outcomes for many diseases, including HIV, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol (Scholefield,
Instead of waiting for a condition to arise in the human body, people should practice preventive care to maintain ideal health and prevent illnesses from occurring in the first place. Preventive care includes such things as immunizations and vaccines, routine physicals, regular medical checkups and periodic colonoscopies.
If a patient is confused or thinking of altering their medication regimen the nurse and/or physician should be informed
Although, there are numerous barriers to medication adherence, including: forgetfulness (organic/nonorganic), intentional (felt better/felt worse), lack of information, attitudes/beliefs towards medication taking, complex regimens, etc (Breen & Thornhill, 1998; Razali & Yahya, 1995). There are also many risks involved with being non-adherent which include: increase risk of relapse, hospitalizations, poor long-term course of illness, and higher yearly medical costs (Gilmer et al., 2004; Omranifard, Yazdani, Yaghoubi, Namdari, 2008). It is estimated that the United States spends $2 billion a year on readmission inpatient hospitalizations for patients diagnosed with schizophrenia alone (Weiden & Olfsen, 1995). Hence, it isn’t surprising that individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia have non adherence rates ranging from 40 to 50% (Bulloch & Patten, 2010) and can run as high as 70 to 80% (Breen & Thornhill, 1998). Other mental health illnesses, such as depression, have shown to have non-adherence rates up to 60% (Lin et al., 1995). Since individuals with schizophrenia are notorious for being noncompliance, majority of research is dedicated to this
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the dangers of prescription drugs when not taken as prescribed by your physician or pharmacist.