Approaches to reducing non-adherence
Non-adherence refers to the inconsistency between patients’ behaviour and medical prescriptions. This has become a major public health issue with serious consequences. One-third to one-half of individuals with a chronic illness do not take their medication in the right manner. In turn, this results in an array of problems including reducing the benefit of treatment which lead to serious complications. Additionally, there are more economic costs as well as less effective and more complex treatments. IMPROVINGADHERENCE (Improving medical treatment adherence: taking into account patients' perception of uncertainty in the causal relationship between their adherence behaviour and their health condition.) is an EU-funded project addressed this issue. It aimed for a better understanding as to why patients do not take medication as prescribed so that novel approaches could be designed and validated to reduce intentional non-adherence. Results of this intervention may be useful in providing medical staff with new tools for improving adherence behaviour.
Keywords
Non-adherence, patients’ behaviour, medical prescriptions, public health, treatment