Abstract
BACKGROUND: In daily practice, treatment adherence and persistence (duration) have mainly been investigated using large administrative databases. However, patients rarely collect a subsequent prescription on the day that the last dose has been consumed from the prior prescription. Therefore, the drug treatment patterns constructed from prescribing or dispensing moments in administrative databases can seem irregular, while patients in the real-world setting continue drug taking without gaps or overlaps in their drug use. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether patient-reported drug taking concurs with length of gaps and overlaps seen in an antidepressant dispensing database. METHODS: Questionnaires on drug taking were sent from Dutch pharmacies to patients using second-generation antidepressants during September-December 2008. Gaps and overlaps between subsequently dispensed prescriptions were investigated. Patients with a gap/overlap were divided into 3 subgroups based on gap/overlap magnitude (
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1755-1761 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Annals of Pharmacotherapy |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Nov 2010 |
Keywords
- Antidepressants
- Dispensing gap
- Dispensing overlap
- Drug taking
- citalopram
- escitalopram
- fluoxetine
- fluvoxamine
- paroxetine
- sertraline
- adult
- anxiety disorder
- article
- correlation analysis
- depression
- female
- human
- major clinical study
- male
- patient attitude
- patient compliance
- prescription
- priority journal
- self report
- validity