Beliefs About Medicines in 3D: a Comment on Phillips et al.

Excerpt

Medication non-adherence is a prevalent problem across chronic illnesses and has been consistently associated with poor health outcomes. Concerns about negative effects of prescribed medicines and low perceived necessity of medicines have been shown to be consistently associated with non-adherence across numerous illness populations [1]. These constructs have been widely measured using the Beliefs About Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) [2], and in combination are referred to as the Necessity-Concerns-Framework (NCF). Interventions aimed at improving medication adherence have suggested that maladaptive beliefs about medicines can be modified (e.g., [3, 4]). Therefore, empirical research directed at better understanding the nature of such beliefs is a topic of great clinical importance. …