InfoMedics Announces New Patient Adherence Survey and Launches Adherence Driver™

InfoMedics recently announced the results from a new survey examining the behaviors of patients on prescription medications. These results were presented at the 2nd Annual Digital Pharma Conference October 15th, and also coincide with the launch of InfoMedics Adherence Driver™, which they will demonstrate at the 5th Annual Patient Adherence & Persistence Summit USA at the end of this week on October 23rd.

Smells like Conference season, considering the Health 2.0 Conference launches tonight, and there are four more events on the horizon in the next two weeks!

While the results are not groundbreaking, they further reinforce the disconnect between patients and doctors regarding medication adherence.

1,017 responded to Zoomerang's invite to participate in InfoMedics, Inc.'s 2008 "Following Doctor's Orders: Patient Prescription Behaviors" survey. All had taken prescription medications, with no particular demographic breakdown.

Survey Says (my comments are in BOLD):

34% do not always fill a new prescription from their doctors; another 5 percent said they never fill those prescriptions.
The latest poll I saw was around 30% - getting higher, wonder if economy affected this answer? Probably too early.

46% said there is a chance they would not tell their doctor if they stopped taking a medication or decided not to fill a prescription. This is bad. Obviously if a doctor doesn't know you are not taking your medication, they will not know how to effectively treat your ailment. Good thing there is blood work to determine medication levels.

67% forget to take their medication at times. Last figure I have from 2007 is 87% - so that is a pretty steep decline.

9% said they would keep taking a medication if they started feeling worse. Not a very engaged population number.

34% sometimes, often or always stop taking medication if they feel better. This number sounds low.

46% are careless at times when taking medications. Sound about right.

32% are always motivated to take a newly prescribed medication. Better than 30%!

When asked for multiple responses about where they go for medication information, 51 percent of respondents said they look to the Internet for this information; 49 percent said they ask their pharmacists and 37 said they ask their doctors.
This follows Manhattan Research's Cybercitizen® Health v8.0 report that stated 53% of patients prefer to look online for health information.

Overall this survey is pretty representative of the current research, with a good indicator that adherence rates are not going above 50%. I am looking forward to seeing the whole survey when it is published.