Adherence to Medication

For people with a chronic disease such as asthma, it is important to have the skills and proper training to effectively treat and manage this disease. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) suggests that healthcare providers should provide essential components to their patients, such as skills on using their inhaler devices, medication adherence and to encourage the maintenance of doctor appointments (GINA, 2018). An inhaler is a device used to deliver medication into your lungs. Proper use of an inhaler is an important skill to learn for medication to be delivered effectively. If an individual has acquired poor techniques for using an inhaler, this leads to poor management, resulting in poorly controlled asthma (GINA, 2018).
GINA states poor asthma control can increase the risk of exacerbations and increased adverse effects. Research shows up to 70–80 percent of patients are unable to use their inhaler correctly, and many healthcare providers are unable to provide the skills or training to demonstrate the proper usage (GINA,2018). A study by Feehan et al (2015), surveyed a community in Utah, using 15 local pharmacies, where monitoring patient’s adherence to their asthma-controlled medications was observed. This study presented a known fact that non-adherence to controller medications for asthmatics is a critical public health problem. A total of 2,193 patients were given at least one controller asthma medication and were examined over a 6-month trial period. Two metrics were used to analyze the data, which were a proportion of days covered (PDC) and medication possession ratio (MPR) during the 180-day period (Feehan et al, 2015).
This trial covered a 6-month period consisting of 54 percent female participants versus 46 percent male participants. Satisfactory levels for adherence were particularly poor. However, adherence had shown to be higher in females and improved with age. This study showed that poor compliance in the state of Utah led to bad outcomes(Feehan et al, 2015). Moreover, the study proved that asthma medication adherence to controller medications was poor across all age groups ranging from 18–64 (Feehan et al, 2015). It was encouraged for interventions to take place to help improve adherence to asthma medications.
Based on the results, pharmacies suggested that healthcare providers should spend more time educating their patients to have better outcomes for adherence. In addition, the study not only revealed adherence to medications for refilling, but it also discovered that patients were not picking up their prescribed medications. A similar study was conducted in Canada where text messages were sent as a reminder to their patients to refill their medication. Along with informing local community pharmacists to ensure they actively follow-up with their patients for proper medication refills (Feehan et al, 2015).
