A 2011 study conducted by Consumer Reports found that the top complaint for physicians was that patients wouldn’t heed their advice or follow prescription recommendations.
Authors of the survey said noncompliant patients were by far the biggest gripe amongst doctors and primary care physicians, as defiance made it harder for doctors to provide the best care possible.
“Most of the doctors we surveyed said it affected their ability to provide optimal care,” the authors said. “Thirty-seven percent said it did, so ‘a lot’.”
Pattern of Disobedience
Results of the survey as well as accompanying patient data suggest that noncompliance is one of the largest problems in the healthcare community. Some of the related findings reveal:
- A survey of 1,000 patients found that nearly 75 percent admitted to not always following medication guidelines as recommended.
- Almost four billion prescriptions are written each year, yet more than half of them are taken incorrectly or not at all.
- A study of 75,000 insured patients found that 30 percent failed to fill a new prescription.
- Prescriptions for high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol went unfilled about 20 percent of the time.
- Only about 50 percent of chronically ill patients take their prescriptions as recommended.
- Noncompliance or improper compliance accounts for 33 to 69 percent of adverse health events that result in hospital admission.
- In a study of over 240,000 patients who were prescribed an antidepressant, less than 30 percent were still taking the medication six months later.
- Patients with hypertension who don’t follow their medication recommendations are 5.4 times more likely to be hospitalized than those who follow the directions.
The findings point to a disturbing trend with great costs and deadly consequences. The US healthcare system estimates that poor compliance costs the industry $290 billion dollars and accounts for more than 125,000 deaths in the United States each year.
Dr. Silverman comments
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. You can prescribe hypertension medication to a person with high blood pressure, but you can’t put the pill in their mouth.
The scope of noncompliance shouldn’t be limited to medication, but to all advice provided by a doctors. Few things frustrate me more than when I tell a patient to get 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, and I meet with them weeks later to find out that they aren’t doing the work.
My primary concern is a patient’s health, so it bothers me when their actions suggest it isn’t also their top concern. Healthcare needs to be a two-pronged approach. At the end of the day, I can preform an operation or prescribe medication, but I can’t follow you around 24-7 to make sure you follow the recommendations. I can’t wave a magic wand and make you get better. Every single case involves some post-op action by the patient, and noncompliance is the quickest way to end up back in the hospital.
Related source: Medscape
