Letter to the editor: Healthcare Adherence Among Patients Who Report the Self-Sabotage of Their Own Medical Care

Dear Editor: Adherence to recommendations provided by healthcare professionals to patients is of keen importance to salutary outcomes. However, patients may, for a number of reasons, be nonadherent. Given that the area of medication adherence is well studied, patient rationales for nonadherence may include, but are not limited to, forgetfulness, concerning side effects, cost of treatment, the availability of insurance coverage, ambivalence about the necessity of treatment, concerns about the potential for addiction and withdrawal with medication, pharmacy access, and regimen complexity.[1,2] In addition, there may be psychological factors such as motivation, mood disorders, trauma, and personality characteristics and disorders.[1,2] The dynamics relating to medication adherence are readily generalized to any type of medical treatment. In an effort to expand understanding of patient factors related to nonadherence, we examined among a sample of primary care patients relationships between history of medical self-sabotaging behavior and general healthcare adherence as assessed by a number of variables. Participants in this study were men and women, ages 18 years or older, being seen by mostly resident providers in an internal medicine outpatient clinic for nonemergent medical care. We excluded individuals with compromising medical, intellectual, cognitive, or psychiatric symptoms of a severity to preclude the candidate’s ability to successfully complete a survey (n=5). Exclusi...
Source: Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Current Issue Letters to the Editor Mental Disorders Primary Care Psychiatry Adherence mental illness Source Type: research