Prescribing and taking medicines

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7419.819

BMJ 2003;327:819 (11 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7419.819

Editorial

Prescribing and taking medicines

Concordance is a fine theory but is mostly not being practised

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

About half of the medicines prescribed for people with chronicconditions are not taken.¹ This is assumed to have large personal,economic, and societal costs,² but are patients really any worseoff for not taking their medicines as prescribed? Doctors saythat not taking drugs means poorer health outcomes, but patientsargue that only they can know what works for them and what doesn't.Bridging the gap between the agendas of patients and doctorschanged the emphasis from the authoritarian concept of complianceto the more inclusive concept of concordance. Concordance meansshared decision making and arriving at an agreement that respectsthe wishes and beliefs of the patient. What it should not beis a more gift wrapped version of compliance.³

The concordant model of shared understanding and prescribingshould improve health outcomes. Why then has it proved so hardto put into practice? One problem is that most . . . [Full text of this article]

Giselle Jones, papers editor

BMJ (gjones@bmj.com)

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

An extreme failure of concordance: Richard Smith
BMJ 2003 327: 0. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Sumathipala, A. (2007). What is the Evidence for the Efficacy of Treatments for Somatoform Disorders? A Critical Review of Previous Intervention Studies. Psychosom. Med. 69: 889-900 [Abstract] [Full text]
Wroth, T. H., Pathman, D. E. (2006). Primary Medication Adherence in a Rural Population: The Role of the Patient-Physician Relationship and Satisfaction with Care. J Am Board Fam Med 19: 478-486 [Abstract] [Full text]
Fallowfield, L., Atkins, L., Catt, S., Cox, A., Coxon, C., Langridge, C., Morris, R., Price, M. (2006). Patients' preference for administration of endocrine treatments by injection or tablets: results from a study of women with breast cancer. Ann Oncol 17: 205-210 [Abstract] [Full text]
Benson, J., Britten, N. (2006). What effects do patients feel from their antihypertensive tablets and how do they react to them? Qualitative analysis of interviews with patients. Fam Pract 23: 80-87 [Abstract] [Full text]
Prinjha, S., Chapple, A., Herxheimer, A., McPherson, A. (2005). Many people with epilepsy want to know more: a qualitative study. Fam Pract 22: 435-441 [Abstract] [Full text]
Ryan-Woolley, B. M, Rees, J. A (2005). Initializing Concordance in Frail Elderly Patients via a Medicines Organizer. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 39: 834-839 [Abstract] [Full text]
McCray, A. T. (2005). Promoting Health Literacy. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 12: 152-163 [Abstract] [Full text]
Knapp, P, Raynor, D K, Berry, D C (2004). Comparison of two methods of presenting risk information to patients about the side effects of medicines. Qual Saf Health Care 13: 176-180 [Abstract] [Full text]
(2003). Optimizing Medication Adherence: We've Got a Ways to Go. JWatch General 2003: 4-4 [Full text]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

No concordance on concordance: Douglas E Ball
bmj.com, 10 Oct 2003 [Full text]
Concordance and....NLP: Lewis Walker
bmj.com, 10 Oct 2003 [Full text]
concordance: gordon cunliffe, et al.
bmj.com, 13 Oct 2003 [Full text]
COMPLIANCE ENHANCED BY DRUG INDICATION ON EVERY REPEAT SCRIPT.: Nigel J Masters, et al.
bmj.com, 14 Oct 2003 [Full text]
Prescribing Concordance in Medicine?: Daniel SW Tan
bmj.com, 20 Oct 2003 [Full text]
Reviews on concordance: Etienne Vermeire, et al.
bmj.com, 27 Oct 2003 [Full text]
Concordance in surgical practice.: Malcolm G Lucas
bmj.com, 5 Nov 2003 [Full text]
Concordance and repeat prescriptions: Jamie Coleman, et al.
bmj.com, 10 Nov 2003 [Full text]