Physicians Weekly: Bribes Don’t Help Patients Stick with Statins

Prescribed medication nonadherence is common — as many as half of those with chronic disease deviate from their prescription — which affects both health outcomes and costs. A 2017 CDC review of nonadherence outlined intentional and unintentional patient factors including complex regimens, financial issues, beliefs about medication and disease, and side effects, as well as provider factors, including limited coordination of care and ineffective communication. Adherence to statin therapy cannot be bought, a randomized clinical trial found. After 12 months, there were no significant differences in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) between patients who received financial incentives to take statins for 6 months and those who did not. Six-month adherence to taking statins was better among people who received financial incentives, but this did not translate into longer-term results — namely, changes in LDL-C levels from baseline to 12 months, the primary outcome — that were different between intervention and control groups, reported Iwan Barankay, PhD, of University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues in JAMA Network Open.   Read more on Physicians Weekly.