A community survey performed in Canada has indicated that nonadhe

A community survey this website performed in Canada has indicated that nonadherence to medication in general

was associated with adverse health outcomes such as hospitalisation, emergency department visits or death [2]. One field of medicine in which treatment adherence is a major issue is antiresorptive therapy to prevent osteoporotic fractures [3]. A recent expert consensus group in osteoporosis [4] described adherence as a general term encompassing both compliance and persistence. Compliance was defined as the extent to which a patient acts in accordance with the prescribed interval and dose of a given treatment regimen, whereas persistence was defined as the cumulative time from initiation to discontinuation of therapy. Compliance is frequently assessed by measuring the medication OSI-744 supplier possession ratio (MPR), defined as the ratio between the actual interval between prescription refills and the anticipated interval assuming full compliance [5]. Oral bisphosphonates are effective treatments of osteoporosis, and several large randomised clinical trials have shown that they can reduce the risk of osteoporotic fractures by an average of 50% [6].

However, the effectiveness of bisphosphonates is compromised by poor adherence to treatment, since a significant proportion of patients abandon their treatment within 6 months of initiation [7] and more than half stop treatment within the first year [8–10]. Low adherence reduces the effectiveness of treatment and, in consequence, increases the risk of fracture [10–13] and resulting healthcare use and costs [14]. A recent Belgian database analysis

[15] showed that the relative selleck products reduction in the risk of hip fracture was 60% for women who were persistent with bisphosphonate treatment compared to those who were non-persistent. In addition, for each incremental decrease of 1% in compliance, as measured by the MPR, the risk of hip fracture increased by 0.4%. For aminophylline antiresorptive treatments for osteoporosis, public awareness of the risks associated with osteoporosis, the absence of a simple ‘read-out’ of the efficacy of medication, gastrointestinal side effects and the constraints associated with treatment may all contribute to suboptimal adherence [13, 16, 17]. In particular, the regimen recommended for bisphosphonates, which requires overnight fasting before medication and the necessity of remaining upright for at least 30 min after having taken the medication, is a major limitation to the acceptability of treatment, especially when treatments need to be taken daily. For this reason, formulations of bisphosphonates allowing weekly and, subsequently, monthly administration have been developed with the aim of reducing the constraints associated with dosing. Indeed, a number of studies have shown that adherence to weekly administration is superior to that of daily dosing. For example, a study of US prescriptions claims demonstrated a significantly higher MPR (69.2% versus 57.6%; p < 0.

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