Abstract

Sharon Ann Varghese*, Jasmy E. S., Megha Anna Varghese, Anjana Baby and Sara Yeldhos

ABSTRACT

Medication non-adherence is an unforeseen, emerging problem of the health care system. According to WHO any increasing the effectiveness of medication adherence have greater impact on clinical outcome than any other improvement made in medical treatment. Patient‘s medication behavior is hindered by various factors such as socioeconomic factors, patient related factors, physician related factors and health care system related factors. Poor medication adherence can lead to unforeseen medical complication, reduced quality of life, increased medical cost, frequent physician visit, medication changes etc. Various methods for measuring medication adherence are available such as subjective measures and objective measures like pill counting, electronic monitoring of medication adherence shown promising and validated measurement of any non-adherence. Barriers to medication adherence can be improved only by complete cooperation from patient, physician and other healthcare provider to follow some basic policies to improve adherence rate in patient. Using latest technologies such as e-health, reminders set in cell phone, watches, MEMS etc. can also improve rate of adherence. Soon, non-adherence would be a leading factor for decreased clinical outcome and can affect the growth of healthcare sector in a country.