Medication Adherence in Diabetes

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Predictors of medication adherence and associated health care costs in an older population with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a longitudinal cohort study.

Department of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA. rbalkris@sph.uth.tmc.edu

• It is important to understand predictors of adherence to therapy with different antidiabetic medications and to determine the relationships between adherence and health care service utilization in older adults (aged >or=65 years) with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

• The cost of treating diabetes mellitus and its complications is high (91.8 billion dollars in the United States in 2002)

• Prescription refill patterns were used to measure adherence by calculating Medication Possession Ratios (MPRs).

• A total of 775 patients were included.