BACKGROUND

People who are prescribed self-administered medications typically take less than half the prescribed doses. Efforts to assist patients with adherence to medications might improve the benefits and efficiency of health care, but also might increase its adverse effects.

OBJECTIVES

To update a review summarising the results of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions to help patients follow prescriptions for medications for medical problems, focusing on trials that measured both adherence and clinical outcomes.

SEARCH STRATEGY

Computerised searches to August 2001 in MEDLINE, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPA) PsychInfo, and Sociofile; bibliographies in articles on patient adherence; articles in the reviewers' personal collections; and contact with authors of original and review articles on the topic.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Articles were selected if they reported an unconfounded RCT of an intervention to improve adherence with prescribed medications, measuring both medication adherence and treatment outcome, with at least 80% follow-up of each group studied and, for long-term treatments, at least six months follow-up for studies with positive initial findings.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Information on study design features, interventions and controls, and results were extracted by one reviewer and confirmed by at least one other reviewer. The studies were too disparate to warrant meta-analysis.

MAIN RESULTS

For short-term treatments, one of three interventions reported in three RCTs showed an effect on both adherence and clinical outcome. Eighteen of 36 interventions for long-term treatments reported in 30 RCTs were associated with improvements in adherence, but only 16 interventions led to improvements in treatment outcomes. Almost all of the interventions that were effective for long-term care were complex, including combinations of more convenient care, information, reminders, self-monitoring, reinforcement, counselling, family therapy, and other forms of additional supervision or attention by a health care provider (physician, nurse, pharmacist or other). Even the most effective interventions did not lead to large improvements in adherence and treatment outcomes. Two studies showed that telling patients about adverse effects of treatment did not affect their adherence.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS: The full benefits of medications cannot be realised at currently achievable levels of adherence. Current methods of improving adherence for chronic health problems are mostly complex and not very effective. Innovations to assist patients to follow medication prescriptions are needed.