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BACKGROUND: Long-term medication adherence (MA) is suboptimal. A simple efficient way to assess MA could be a useful tool to gauge patient’s adherence behavior and address ways to improve taking medications, but as of yet, no such easy tool is available.
AIM(S): To assess the validity of a 3-item stage-of-change (MSOC) survey used to assess antihypertensive MA compared to refill frequency and the Morisky scale.
METHODS: We used baseline data from a blood pressure lowering RCT (n = 533). MA was assessed using the Morisky 8- and 4-item scales and refill frequency from patients’ EMR. All participants were staged at each visit based on to their responses to a short 3-item medication MSOC survey.
RESULTS: After reporting characteristics of the study population, we describe the patients’ adherence to antihypertensive medications based on their responses to the Morisky and MSOC survey. Next, we compare these responses to the more objective assessment of MA from electronic medical records.
CONCLUSION: These assessments provide valuable information on the performance of the MSOC as it relates to other evaluations of MA in patients with chronic conditions.
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