Diabetics more likely to adhere to
drug regimen with pharmacist advice

   Diabetic patients are more likely to comply with their medications if pharmacists explain to them how they should be taking their drugs when they gofor a prescription refill, according to pharmacist Wilson Yun-shing Leung of the Prince of Wales Hospital. Leung was speaking here at the Second Hong Kong Diabetes and Cardiovascular Risk Factors East Meets West symposium. At the study start, Leung and colleagues found that about 50% of 2038 patients receiving cardiovascular and antidiabetic drugs were nonadherent to the treatment regimen, including prescriptions for diet, exercise and self-monitoring as well as medication.

   The nonadherence rate for following the drug regimen alone was 24%. Leung explained in an interview with Reuters Health that ”of these patients, 34% were mixing up their dosages.... Their average age was 61 years and many of them were illiterate.... They might take a drug which should be taken twice daily once or three times daily.... 25% of patients said they were forgetful, while 7% stopped because of side effects and 4% stopped because of a decrease in their disease or symptom severity.”

When patients returned 3 to 4 months later to refill their prescriptions, a pharmacist explained their drug regimen to them. ”This reduced the drug noncompliance rate from 24% to 8%,” Leung said. ”Patients need constant reinforcement,” Leung added, explaining that in a separate study of 102 patients with type 2 diabetes, those who received additional telephone counseling by a research nurse had significantly lower mortality rates over a year.
Från Medical Reuters.

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Resestipendier om totalt 25.000 kronor Svensk Förening för Diabetologi (SFD) utlyser resestipendier på totalsumman 25.000 kr med ekonomiskt stöd från Roche AB. För att kunna ansöka om stipendierna så måste man vara medlem i SFD. Mottagare utses av styrelsen för SFD. Ansökan är öppen för yngre aktiva diabetologer-diabetesforskare som vid en aktuell kongress skall presentera egna forskningsdata. Samtliga ansökningar skall insändas i 10 ex med: • sammanfattning av forskningsarbetet, max en A 4 sida • kort meritförteckning inkl persondata, max 0.5 A 4 sida • lista på de 1-5 viktigaste publikationerna tidigare • motivering till ansökan med kostnadskalkyl Bedömningarna sker efter vetenskapliga meriter och i första hand är avsikten att yngre forskare skall premieras. Ansökan inskickas senast 1 mars till SFD:s Vetenskaplig sekreterare Docent Jan Eriksson, Diabetesenheten, Medicinkliniken, Norrlands Universitetssjukhus, 90185 Umeå Fax: 090 13 76 33 E-post: jan.eriksson@medicin.umu.se