Evaluating Medication Habits in Medical Mission Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Short-term medical missions (STMMs) are a highly debated and largely understudied form of international volunteer work. With growing dedication to health care abroad, research evaluating their impact is crucial to ensure continued interventions are effective in improving medical care. STMM care varies in length, frequency, size, location, services offered, and country of origin and destination. This makes systematic evaluation of STMMs difficult. In addition, the transient nature of patient visits makes trending STMM's impact on long-term health outcomes complex. Despite intermittent availability, primary care missions offering pharmaceutical supplies have the unique opportunity to provide continued care to the community via free prescription supplies each visit. Given the challenges with measuring long-term outcomes in this population, it is unknown if these donated medications have any impact on patient health outcomes. As medication noncompliance is known to hinder health outcomes, our study chose to evaluate patient medication habits to see if these prescription supplies were being utilized appropriately. To our knowledge, no study has surveyed medical mission patients to explore their access and utilization of medication. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted using a patient survey to identify risks and/or factors associated with medication noncompliance in patients visiting the medical mission, Waves of Health (WOH). For over 10 years, WOH has organized biannual seven-day trips to the Dominican Republic. The multi-question survey was translated into the native language, Spanish with Dominican dialect. Noncompliance was defined through the survey question "Did you run out of your prescription medication at all during the past year?" Spanish speaking participants, of both sexes and age ≥18 years old, who visited the mission clinic in November 2019 met inclusion for this study. Patients from Haiti or age <18 years old were excluded. Participation was voluntary. Survey items were dichotomized for univariate analysis to identify factors associated with running out of medication. To explore predictors of running out of medicine, we performed multivariate logistic regression analysis by ENTER method.  Results Of 127 patients, over half (58.3% [74]) reported running out of medication. Inadequate access to healthcare, daily medication use, and rationing personal medications were all significantly associated with running out of medicine. Frequency of WOH visits was not associated with running out of medication. Multivariate regression showed that being on daily medication and rationing personal medications were statistically significant predictors of running out of medicines. Access to healthcare, frequency of WOH visits, and WOH medication supply were not predictors of running out of medication. Conclusion  Mission interventions to improve medication practices should be explored due to the high number of patients who reported improper utilization of medication. In order to improve health outcomes in primary care settings, patients must play an active role in their care and understand the importance of taking their medication as prescribed for optimal disease management. Primary care STMMs may relieve short-term health concerns, but without proper utilization of chronic disease medications, it is unclear if STMMs role is impactful in long-term health outcomes.