INTRODUCTION Patient adherence to a medication regimen is usually expressed as an adherence rate, defined as the proportion of prescribed doses actually taken. An adherence rate threshold, above which the therapeutic effect is maintained, is typically assigned an arbitrary value, commonly 0.8. OBJECTIVE Here, we determined the value of the adherence rate threshold objectively in different dru...

BACKGROUND Non-adherence is one of the strongest predictors of therapeutic failure in HIV-positive patients. Virologic failure with subsequent emergence of resistance reduces future treatment options and long-term clinical success. METHODS Prospective observational cohort study including patients starting new class of antiretroviral therapy (ART) between 2003 and 2010. Participants were naïve...

Standard genotypic antiretroviral resistance testing, performed by bulk sequencing, does not readily detect variants that comprise <20% of the circulating HIV-1 RNA population. Nevertheless, it is valuable in selecting an antiretroviral regimen after antiretroviral failure. In patients with poor adherence, resistant variants may not reach this threshold. Therefore, deep sequencing would be pote...

OBJECTIVE to identify salient behavioral, normative, control and self-efficacy beliefs related to the behavior of adherence to oral antidiabetic agents, using the Theory of Planned Behavior. METHOD cross-sectional, exploratory study with 17 diabetic patients in chronic use of oral antidiabetic medication and in outpatient follow-up. Individual interviews were recorded, transcribed and content...

Over 3.2 million children worldwide are infected with HIV, but only 24% of these children receive antiretroviral therapy (ART). ART adherence among children is a crucial part of managing human-immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and extending the life and health of infected children. Important causes of poor adherence are formulation- and regimen-specific properties, including poor palatabil...

OBJECTIVE This was a cross-sectional study of the ability of independently living healthy elders to follow a medication regimen. Participants were divided into a group with High Cognitive Function (HCF) or Low Cognitive Function (LCF) based on their scores on the ADAS-Cog. METHOD Thirty-eight participants aged 65 or older and living independently in the community followed a twice-daily vitami...

Older adults often face challenges as they transition out of the acute care hospital, especially with regard to adhering to their medications. In this narrative review, we discuss medication adherence in older adults across the continuum of care, describing reasons for nonadherence, methods to assess adherence and tools to improve adherence, with particular focus on emerging techniques and tech...

Background. Adherence to antiviral therapy is important for HIV-infected people living in low- and middle-income countries, because of poor access to alternative regimens. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of adherence in Cambodian patients enrolled in the ESTHER program and treated with WHO first-line regimen for at least 6 months. The survey was based on a self-report questionnai...

AIM: To examine the overall effectiveness of interventions designed to improve medical treatment adherence among adolescent patients. METHODS: PubMed and PsycINFO databases were searched to retrieve and analyze empirical journal articles (from 1948-2013). Only peer-reviewed, English language journals that defined a measure of adherence (or compliance), assessed an intervention aimed at improvin...

OBJECTIVES Single-pill combination therapy (amlodipine/atorvastatin) might be more effective than double-pill therapy (amlodipine+atorvastatin) in patients with diabetes and concomitant hypertension requiring statin therapy. We compared the cost-effectiveness of a single-pill with that of double-pill for control of low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, with the ultimate goal of ca...