RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Discordance Between Drug Adherence as Reported by Patients and Drug Importance as Assessed by Physicians
JF The Annals of Family Medicine
JO Ann Fam Med
FD American Academy of Family Physicians
SP 415
OP 421
DO 10.1370/afm.1965
VO 14
IS 5
A1 Stéphanie Sidorkiewicz
A1 Viet-Thi Tran
A1 Cécile Cousyn
A1 Elodie Perrodeau
A1 Philippe Ravaud
YR 2016
UL http://www.annfammed.org/content/14/5/415.abstract
AB PURPOSE Among patients on long-term medical therapy, we compared (1) patient and physician assessments of drug adherence and of drug importance and (2) drug adherence reported by patients with drug importance as assessed by their physicians.METHODS We recruited to the study patients receiving at least 1 long-term drug treatment from both hospital and ambulatory settings in France. We compared drug adherence reported by patients and drug importance assessed by physicians using Spearman correlation coefficients. Reasons for nonadherence were collected with open-ended questions and classified as intentional or unintentional.RESULTS Between April and August 2014, we recruited 128 patients taking 498 drugs. Patients and physicians showed only weak agreement in their assessments of drug adherence (r = −0.25; 95% CI, −0.37 to −0.11) and drug importance (r = 0.07; 95% CI, 0.00 to 0.13). We did not find any correlation between physician-assessed drug importance and patient-reported drug adherence (r = −0.04; 95% CI, −0.14 to 0.06). In all, 94 (18.9%) of the drugs that physicians considered important were not correctly taken by patients. Patients intentionally did not adhere to 26 (48.1%) of the drugs for which they reported reasons for nonadherence.CONCLUSIONS We found substantial discordance between patient and physician evaluations of drug adherence and drug importance. Nearly 20% of drugs considered important by physicians were not correctly taken by patients. These findings highlight the need for better patient-physician collaboration in drug treatment.