The UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, April 1998, page 8 contains the following
short observation about prescription drugs entitled NO TAKERS. We, PWP and
our Carers, know about contraindicated drugs, but this speaks to the isue
of noncompliance.
Thousands of people are hurt by the side effects of drugs. There's
another big (though completely avoidable) problem
with medication: noncompliance. That is, many people don't take their
medication properly (taking incorrect doses,
skipping doses, or -stopping too soon)-or don't take it at all. No one
knows exactly how many misuse their drugs,
but here are some ' statistics, culled by the Center for the Advancement
of Health:
30% to 50% of all prescriptions are not taken correctly and thus fail
to produce the desired results.
Noncompliance kills 125,000 Americans each year.
About 10% of all hospitalizations can be attributed to patients using
drugs improperly.
About one-third of patients take all their prescribed medicine;
another third take some of the prescription; and the
final third don't take any of it.
About 20% of prescriptions are never even filled (this is sometimes
due to the expense).
This is a failure of the medical system, as much as of the patients.
Doctors and pharmacists need to communicate better with patients and
give them better instructions so that they will take their drugs as
directed.
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Sid Roberts 68/dx3
[log in to unmask] Youngstown, Ohio
