Adherence Strategies for Patients

Table 5: Strategies to improve patient adherence

1. Assist your patient to adhere by:
• Tailoring pill-taking to fit patients’ daily habits (Grade D);
• Simplifying medication regimens to once-daily dosing (Grade D);
• Replacing multiple pill antihypertensive combinations with single pill combinations (Grade C);
• Utilizing unit-of-use packaging (of several medications to be taken together) (Grade D); and
• Adherence to an antihypertensive prescription can be improved by a multidisciplinary team approach (Grade B).
2. Assist your patient in getting more involved in their treatment by:
• Encouraging greater patient responsibility/autonomy in monitoring their blood pressure and adjusting their prescriptions (Grade C); and
• Educating patients and patients’ families about their disease/treatment regimens (Grade C)
3. Improve your management in the office and beyond by:
• Assessing adherence to pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy at every visit (Grade D);
• Encouraging adherence with therapy by out of office contact (either by phone or mail), particularly over the first three months of therapy (Grade D);
• Coordinating with work-site healthcare givers to improve monitoring of adherence with pharmacological and lifestyle modification prescriptions (Grade D): and
• Utilizing electronic medication compliance aids (Grade D)