As young pharmacists, my colleagues and I have been trying to solve the tricky and puzzling phenomenon of why people refuse to take medication as prescribed—on the surface, it is against their own interests and thinking about how to get them back on track. We quickly learned that this problem, which we call “patient non-compliance with medication”, is a complex issue. Fast forward a few decades and we see that the issue of compliance has been renamed “medication compliance”, a meaningless, simple phrase that is considered a better label for the issue, or for some people , Is an interchangeable term.
In this article, I proposed why the change from “compliance” to “persistence” is based on unfounded and untenable foundations, how it confuses causality, and why the language and way of thinking are different Transformation can help restructure and better solve the core problem: patients failing to take medications as prescribed.
Why non-compliance is a problem
The patient just doesn’t take the medicine according to the prescribed dose, prescribed time, and prescribed duration. The severity of this problem, called non-compliance, is well-known, serious and common. According to reports, patients taking antihypertensive drugs, antihyperglycemic drugs, and anticoagulants have poor compliance and are more serious for topical drug treatments commonly used for skin diseases.
In addition to leading to a poor patient prognosis, non-compliance can also lead to well-documented downstream financial impacts, including higher hospitalization costs, unnecessary emergency room visits and other avoidable treatment costs, and significant losses to the pharmaceutical industry. Over the years, the entire company ecosystem has continued to develop, helping healthcare providers overcome challenges through participation solutions, electronic compliance monitoring, financial incentives, and even high-touch solutions involving multidisciplinary care teams.
I suggest that these technological advances will synergistically benefit from the same intense focus on patient compliance, which is the behavioral basis for medication compliance.
The transition from “compliance” to “compliance”: an unreasonable change
There is little support to show that compliance is considered negative or derogatory
Apart from speculation, few studies support the view that patients think compliance is a negative word, or they think anger When required to comply. Some research It even shows that the patient does not care about any of the phrases used. Similarly, even if providers provide care in an increasingly collaborative and consumerized way, Little research There is even an opinion that they view phrase compliance more positively than phrase compliance.
Patients often follow the clinician’s recommendations and requirements
Patients seeking care for a variety of temporary and chronic conditions will seek advice from competent care providers and then do their best to follow these advices. Patients undergoing physical therapy after orthopedic surgery, or patients who have prescribed diet and lifestyle changes after cardiovascular intervention. Because it is believed that the effective advice of care providers can help them recover and recover, patients (and their caregivers) follow the advice of providers.
The words persistence and prescription can be considered equally aggressive
Even a cursory epistemological examination shows that if the word “compliance” in some way seems to require the patient to take action or give a paternalistic impression, then the word “compliance” and “prescription” may also be the same. The dictionary definition of persistence brings attachment, loyalty and loyalty. The meaning of prescription includes authoritative instructions and orders. If these terms have negative connotations for the patient, then the use of “compliance” has no practical meaning.
Confusion of cause and effect: compliance is a key driver of compliance
The financial indicators of any company in the consumer goods market depend on the purchase of its products. However, the focus of most consumer-driven companies has shifted to the causal driver of purchase, that is, consumer loyalty, which is a concept defined by behavior, emotion, and cognition. Similarly, drug compliance is the objective behavior of taking drugs at a specific time, a specific dose, and a specific duration. Patient compliance or compliance desire is the main driving factor of compliance. Compliance and compliance are not the same, and are not just terms replaced based on their assumed acceptability.
Compliance: the concept of behavioral networking and actionability
Obedience, like loyalty, is full of cognitive and emotional dimensions
Compliance is a suggestion of passive behavior, assuming that it is based on blindly following rules or accepting orders. On the contrary, just like the desire to be loyal to the brand or the company, the (intentional) desire for compliance or compliance is, in some cases, a proactive decision that relies on cognitive cost-benefit calculations, or in other cases it is full of Emotional reaction case. The resulting desire for obedience is a will-driven state, not just a passive response. Uncovering the complexity of adherence (and non-adherence) to a specific therapy or a specific patient group can provide insights that simply monitoring adherence cannot provide.
Through compliance, the patient-provider relationship is a powerful driver of patient compliance
Research tells us that the doctor-patient relationship and trust are powerful drivers of persistence; patient compliance mediates this relationship.Research on patient compliance in a wide range of areas including high-potency antiretroviral therapy, antihypertensive drugs, and topical psoriasis treatments found that strong patient-provider relationships lead to Improve InsistingFinally, the trust in the provider’s trust and the strength of the relationship will drive compliance. But they do this through (through) their influence on patients’ willingness to comply with prescription drug regimens. Patients who trust their providers want to act on their recommendations-and because of this desire, they take their medications as directed.
Actionable drivers of patient compliance come into play-affecting downstream compliance
Compliance conforms to a network of rules that can imply compliance with behavioral drivers—or a causal diagram of related structures. Patient trust, patient satisfaction, cost-benefit assessment of treatment value (possibly flawed), and a large number of cognitive judgments directly promote patient compliance. Focusing on these driving factors or antecedents will reveal the system patterns behind compliance (or non-compliance), facilitate further examination of secondary driving factors, and provide clinicians and nursing teams with better insights to manage poor Medication habits.
Looking at the problem of unsatisfactory patient medication management from this perspective, and focusing on the compliance drivers listed above is a more effective way to improve it. The change of language from “compliance” to “compliance” not only lacks a strong reason, but also misidentifies the relationship between the two and keeps the conversation away from the root cause of compliance. Accepting and understanding the term “compliance” may be an important step in improving medication compliance and ultimately improving patient outcomes.
Photo: Stas_V, Getty Images
