Patient adherence to prescribed potassium supplement therapy

Area of Science:

• Pharmacoeconomics
• Health Services Research
• Clinical Pharmacy

Background:

• Patient adherence to prescribed medication regimens is crucial for effective treatment outcomes.
• Potassium supplements are commonly prescribed, but adherence can be challenging.
• Understanding adherence differences among various potassium supplement formulations is important for optimizing therapy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if patient adherence ratios for potassium supplements differ based on the type of supplement used.
• To compare adherence rates across various potassium drug formulations using pharmacy refill data.

Main Methods:

• Utilized automated pharmacy claims records from a large managed care organization to calculate patient adherence ratios.
• Defined adherence as the ratio of total days of drug supplied to total days between prescription refills.
• Compared mean patient adherence ratios among different potassium supplement regimens, controlling for demographic and prescription variables.

Main Results:

• A total of 2289 patients were analyzed (65.9% women, mean age 57.6 years).
• The mean adherence ratio for K-DUR (extended-release tablet) was 0.81, higher than combined ratios for other supplements (0.73), other extended-release tablets (0.74), tablets/capsules (0.74), liquids (0.50), and liquids/powders (0.63).
• Regression analysis confirmed significantly higher adherence for K-DUR compared to other potassium supplements, even after adjusting for multiple factors.

Conclusions:

• Pharmacy claims data serve as an effective tool for measuring patient adherence to potassium supplement therapy.
• K-DUR extended-release tablets demonstrated superior patient adherence compared to other potassium supplement formulations.
• Future research should correlate these patient adherence ratios with clinical outcomes to further validate their significance.