Medication complexity, prescription behaviour and patient adherence at the interface between ambulatory and...

A hospital stay is often accompanied by changes in medication therapy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a transfer across the interfaces on the complexity of therapeutic regimens and patient adherence as well as the attitudes of patients and general practitioners (GPs) towards pharmacotherapies.

This was a prospective observational study that analysed the complexity of medication therapies and the adherence and attitudes of internal medicine and urology patients towards their medication(s) at three time points (hospital admission, discharge and 6 weeks after discharge). GPs of the patients recruited to the study were questioned about the follow-up medication therapy and their opinion on the medication prescribed in hospital.

At the time of hospital admission, 60.2 % of the study population were nonadherent. During hospitalization, the number decreased to 37.6 %, but increased to 61.2 % 6 weeks after discharge. Changes in the overall complexity of the therapy regimens were marginal and not statistically significant. Of the long-term medication regimens, 48.6 % were modified during hospital stay. The patients preferred regimens with a minimum of drug administrations. GPs stated to be willing to continue hospital prescriptions but were restricted by financial budgets.

The results of this study confirm that an increase in adherence during a hospital stay is only transient, underlining the need for interventions to ameliorate medication adherence. They also suggest that patients prefer simple regimens. Although GPs are willing to consider their patient's preferences on pharmacotherapy, they state limitations due to financial budgets. Further studies are needed that investigate the extent to which medication therapies can be simplified and the effect of simplification on adherence.