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Analysis of Factors Related to Medication Compliance in Elderly Patients: A Survey of Outpatients in the Department of Internal Medicine of Oita Medical University Hospital.

1997; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3999/jscpt.28.667

1882-8272

Eiko Toyosawa, Eiko Mieno, Kimiko Tsutsumi, Kōichi Nakamura, Shigeyuki Nakano, Nobuoki Eshima,

Medication Adherence and Compliance

Objectives: Studies on the state of medication compliance in Japanese elderly patients are not comprehensive with respect to the patient's perception of health, modifying factors of medication, and likelihood of the patient actually taking the medication. The present study was conducted to investigate factors that influence medication compliance in elderly patients, compared with factors in younger patients.Methods: One hundred and one elderly (65 years or older) and 105 younger outpatients (younger than 65 years) who were receiving drug therapy in the Department of Internal Medicine of Oita Medical University Hospital were directly interviewed using a questionnaire based on the health belief model for compliance behavior.Results: When compared with younger patients, even though more elderly patients took greater numbers of different pharmaceutical preparations of drugs and received prescriptions from 2 or 3 physicians, the medication compliance score was better in elderly patients (p<0.01). The results showed that the length of drug therapy, past experience with adverse drug reactions, patient-physician relationship, anxiety about drug therapy, and patients' judgment about the effects of drug therapy were the factors that influence the medication compliance in both elderly and younger patients. However, factors such as sex, the frequency of medications per day, dosage, the number of prescriptions, and knowledge of drugs did not correlate with medication compliance in either group.Conclusions: When compared with younger patients, elderly patients showed better medication compliance among outpatients of the university hospital. The present study suggests that the role of medical staff (physicians, nurses, pharmacists) in decreasing patients' anxieties with respect to the safety and effectiveness of drugs taken and in making better communication with patients is important in improving patient's compliance behavior.