Trust fosters correct drug use when cash is tight
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When strapped for cash, it is not uncommon for people to cut back on taking their prescribed medications. Now, new research indicates that this tendency—which can have obvious adverse health consequences—is offset by a high degree of trust between patients and doctors.
“In our study of over 900 diabetic patients in a VA health system, we found that medication costs were a problem for everybody, regardless of whether they trusted their doctors or not,” lead author Dr. John D. Piette, from the VA Ann Arbor Health Care System in Michigan, told Reuters Health. “Nevertheless, when people didn’t trust their doctors, they were much more likely to cut back on medications because of cost pressures.”
In the study, which is reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, subjects were divided into a low- or high-trust group depending on the level of physician trust they reported on a standard scale.
As noted, low physician trust increased the risk of not taking medications correctly due to cost pressures. Moreover, low income only contributed to this problem in the low-trust group.
People who cited non-cost issues as a reason for not taking medications properly were four times more likely than other subjects to also report cost-related underuse, the report indicates. In addition, the presence of Depression doubled the risk of cost-related underuse.
“The results suggest that there are things physicians and health systems can do to intervene and help patients take their medications as prescribed, despite the inevitable costs,” Piette noted.
He said that a study is currently underway looking at the choices patients make when they do not to take medications as prescribed.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, August 8/22, 2005.
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