Within six months, one in three patients fail to take medications as ...( edications as prescribed was the number...),Health

edications as prescribed was the number of other prescriptions the patient was taking in the year before treatment was initiated, the researchers found. As the number of other prescribed medications decreased, the likelihood of adherence to concomitant anti-hypertensive and lipid-lowering therapy increased. The second strongest predictor of adherence was age. The third strongest predictor was the time between the initiations of the two treatments. Patients who started these regimens on the same day or within one month of each other were 34 percent more likely to be adherent with both medications during the three-year study period, compared with patients who initiated therapy two to three months apart. Women were less likely to be adherent than men.

" physicians may be able to improve medication adherence substantially by reducing the number of concomitant medications and by initiating AH and LL medications together or close in time," the authors conclude. "Any improvement in adherence with concomitant AH and LL medications is likely to be associated with substantial public health care benefits."

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Contact: Richard H. Chapman, Ph.D.
rick.chapman@valuemedics.com
JAMA and Archives Journals
23-May-2005

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