Does a brief pharmacist telephone intervention improve medication adherence in nonadherent patients with comorbid hypertension and diabetes?
A brief pharmacist telephone intervention significantly improves medication adherence in nonadherent patients with hypertension and diabetes, though additional strategies may be needed to reach optimal adherence targets.
The brief pharmacist telephone intervention resulted in significantly better PDCs during the 6 months following the intervention as well as lower discontinuation rates among a group of nonadherent patients with comorbid HTN and DM. The overall PDC rates in both the intervention and control groups were still lower than the recommended 80%. Improving adherence to clinically meaningful values may require more than a brief pharmacist phone call. Incorporating motivational interviewing techniques with follow-up calls to address adherence barriers may be more influential in forming sustainable behavioral change and enhancing medication adherence.
Abughosh et al. (Fri,) studied this question.