Measurement of Medication Adherence

Question 1

What are the patterns of medication utilization?

Answer 1

Therapeutic effectiveness
Medication non-adherence
- primary
- secondary
- hyper-adherence (forgets to take or intentionally miss)
Medication non-persistent

Question 2

Which form of medium is the most common in a patient self-report?

Answer 2

structured surveys

Question 3

What are some examples of patient self-reports?

Answer 3

Morisky scale
Brief medication questionnaire (BMQ)
Adherence starts with knowledge (ASK)

Question 4

What is provider estimates?

Answer 4

Health care provider’s estimate of a patient’s adherence (no more accurate than self reports)

Question 5

Which method was the historic “gold standard” indirect method?

Answer 5

Pill counts - count # of doses supplied and remaining at the end of the observation period

Question 6

What is Medication event monitoring systems (MEMS)? What are its limitations?

Answer 6

electronic pill bottle monitoring
- chip on bottle and records everytime bottle is open

Limitiation: cost and only accounts for opening the bottle

Question 7

Administrative claims data can measure primary non-adherence

T or F

Answer 7

False

Question 8

How do you calculate medication possession ratio?

Answer 8

Ratio of Total days supply during a period (first fill date to last fill date)

Question 9

What is PDC? How do you calculate?

Answer 9

Proportion of Days covered - proportion of days on which the pt was “covered” with medication available

TDC/ TDC calendar period x100