How can we ensure improved compliance with therapeutic recommendations – this was the topic discussed by the panellists during the debate on shared responsibility in the treatment of chronic lifestyle diseases.
Patients' failure to comply with therapeutic recommendations poses significant, but avoidable, challenges for the health care system. Apart from the significant death toll, there are other consequences, ranging from financial losses to an excessive burden on the health care system.
‘Hypertension is a perfect condition to analyse the partnership between patient and doctor,” says Professor Andrzej Tykarski, hypertensiologist. “We talk more and more about adherence. This term refers to adherence to pharmacological and non-pharmacological recommendations. There is also the concept of ‘persistence’, in other words, whether the patient persists with the treatment or quits the therapy. We should also talk more about ‘concordance’, that is whether the patient accepts treatment as part of the therapeutic team, which includes a doctor, a nurse and other people.”
Simplify recommendations
Patients, especially elderly people, take a lot of pills and often confuse the times they should take them. Sometimes they forget to take a particular medicine, sometimes they cannot afford to buy more expensive drugs. This is why, according to experts, it is necessary to favour multicomponent drugs as much as possible to simplify treatment for the patient.
Prof Tykarski reminded that hypertension is a disease that causes no pain for many years, so it does not motivate the patient to comply with therapeutic recommendations. However, it is crucial to take medication when suffering from hypertension. If a patient takes more than 80% of the prescribed medication, they are considered fully cooperative. If they take 50-80% of the doses – they are partially non-adherent. There are also patients who take medication even less frequently.
