Adherence with Preventive Medication in Childhood Asthma

Abstract

Suboptimal adherence with preventive medication is common and often unrecognised as a cause of poor asthma control. A number of risk factors for nonadherence have emerged from well-conducted studies. Unfortunately, patient report a physician's estimation of adherence and knowledge of these risk factors may not assist in determining whether non-adherence is a significant factor. Electronic monitoring devices are likely to be more frequently used to remind patients to take medication, as a strategy to motivate patients to maintain adherence, and a tool to evaluate adherence in subjects with poor disease control. The aim of this paper is to review non-adherence with preventive medication in childhood asthma, its impact on asthma control, methods of evaluating non-adherence, risk factors for suboptimal adherence, and strategies to enhance adherence.

Preventive asthma medication discontinuation among children enrolled in fee-for-service Medicaid

“…This may be explained in part by the short duration of usage that we measured here, although low initiation of preventive asthma medications may also be a factor. Consistent with other studies [9,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40], our results indicate that usage falls among adolescents, typically within an age range when children assume responsibility for taking their own medications.…”

“…Covariates were chosen that have been found in other research to be predictive of discontinuation: age at first preventive asthma medication claim, sex [9,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40], race/ ethnicity [4,9,10,21,38,41], urbanicity [41], geographic location [9], reported highest educational attainment by any family member [35,37,39,42], family structure [39,40,43], reported health status [9], presence of chronic conditions besides asthma [7,35], healthcare out-of-pocket costs [12], presence of a primary care provider [5,6], and preventive asthma medication regimen [7,20,36].…”

Effects of a written asthma action plan on caregivers' management of children with asthma: a cross-sectional questionnaire survey

“…10 The investigators hypothesised that 50% of caregivers in the CNW group agreed it was safe to change the doses of inhaled controller asthma medication for a short period of time by themselves and anticipated a 50% improvement in response (i.e. 75% agreed) for the CW group.…”

Asthma Medications Should Be Available for Over-the-Counter Use: Pro

“…While barriers to adherence include social, attitudinal, and economic factors, nonprescription availability would primarily reduce economic barriers (10). Among chronic diseases in general, and asthma in particular, higher medication costs are associated with lower adherence (8,11,12).…”