Motivational interviewing: A tool to improve medication adherence?

Abstract

Nonadherence to prescribed medications threatens the health and well-being of patients and has costly financial implications. Medication nonadherence causes the death of nearly 125,000 Americans every year and has been linked to an estimated 10% of hospital and 23% of nursing-home admissions.1 Adherence is defined as the extent to which a person’s behavior (in terms of taking medications, following diets, and executing healthy lifestyle changes) coincides with medical or health advice. The term adherence is meant to be nonjudgmental, a statement of fact rather than of blame cast on the prescriber, patient, or treatment.2 Adherence also assumes collaboration between the patient and provider regarding the patient’s health care and health-related decisions. The problem of medication non-adherence is pervasive. Adherence rates for prescribed medications vary considerably, depending on the disease and study methodology, with an average rate of 40–50%.2,3 Claxton et al.4 reviewed studies that evaluated adherence rates for patients with 10 different disease states and demonstrated that mean adherence rates ranged from 51% to 80%.