Published in:
01-06-2007 | Original Article
Strategies for Coping in a Complex World: Adherence Behavior Among Older Adults with Chronic Illness
Published in: Journal of General Internal Medicine | Issue 6/2007
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Background
Increasing numbers of medicines increase nonadherence. Little is known about how older adults manage multiple medicines for multiple illnesses.
Objectives
To explore how older adults with multiple illnesses make choices about medicines.
Design
Semistructured interviews with older adults taking several medications. Accounts of respondents’ medicine-taking behavior were collected.
Participants
Twenty community-dwelling seniors with health insurance, in Eastern Massachusetts, aged 67–90, (4–12 medicines, 3–9 comorbidities).
Approach
Qualitative analysis using constant comparison to explain real choices made about medicines in the past (“historical”) and hypothetical (“future”) choices.
Results
Respondents reported both past (“historical”) choices and hypothetical (“future”) choices between medicines. Although people discussed effectiveness and future risk of the disease when prompted to prioritize their medicines (future choices), key factors leading to nonadherence (historical choices) were costs and side effects. Specific choices were generally dominated by 1 factor, and respondents rarely reported making explicit trade-offs between different factors. Factors affecting 1 choice were not necessarily the same as those affecting another choice in the same person. There was no evidence of “adherent” personalities.
Conclusion
Prescribing a new medicine, a change in provider or copayment can provoke new choices about both new and existing medications in older adults with multiple morbidities.