Abstract
Aim. Good medication adherence may decrease the probability of worse outcomes and reduce unnecessary medical care costs. This study aims to evaluate medication adherence for people on statin therapy. Methods. National health insurance databases were analyzed from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2007. Study samples were patients of 45 years and older adults who took statin for the first time during the study period. Medication possession ratio (MPR) was measured until the patients had hospitalization or reached the three-year follow-up period. We identified a good (MPR ≥ 80%) and a poor (MPR < 80%) medication adherence group to conduct statistical analyses. Results. 40.8% of patients were of good medication adherence and 59.2% were of poor medication adherence. Multivariate logistic regression model indicated that the MPR ≥ 80% group had significantly less probability of hospitalization (P < 0.001). Being men, increasing age, higher Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) scores, seeking care mostly in the medical center or teaching hospitals, and living in the suburban or rural areas had higher probability of hospitalization (P < 0.05 or P < 0.001). The MPR ≥ 80% group spent less hospitalization expenditures (P < 0.001). Conclusion. Effective interventions may be applied to the poor medication adherence group in order to improve their health care outcomes.
Highlights
Medication treatment is an effective therapy for people with chronic diseases [1,2,3,4]
Over 40% of the group of Medication possession ratio (MPR) < 80% had hospitalization compared to 22% of the group of MPR ≥ 80% during the study period
How to motivate patients to keep good medication adherence becomes an important issue in the process of clinical treatment
Summary
Medication treatment is an effective therapy for people with chronic diseases [1,2,3,4]. Such medication taking involves long term activity. Whether people with chronic conditions have good medication adherence or not is an important research question. Effective interventions can be designed based on the study results [10, 11] All of these issues are critical policy and research topics for the health care delivery system. Researches of such topics are still limited in Taiwan. This research aims to fill some of those research gaps by conducting evaluations of medication adherence for people with statin therapy
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