At least a fourth of cardiac patients don’t take medicines prescribed to prevent heart attacks and strokes, a new study says.
The study results suggest that doctors need to pay more attention to the way patients take their medicines in line with recommendations in recent National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance.
In a study of 472 heart patients registered with general practitioners, 29 percent failed to take drugs to prevent strokes and heart attacks regularly enough. And 23 percent missed doses of statins to reduce their cholesterol.
Women were slightly more likely to take their medicines on schedule than men, as were older patients and those taking larger numbers of medicines, said a Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) release.
“Simply prescribing a drug is not enough. Doctors and other members of the primary care team, such as pharmacists, need to work with patients so they understand the importance of taking their medicines in the right dose, at the right time,” concluded Wasim Baqir, pharmacologist from The Village Green Surgery, Sunderland.
These findings were presented at the RPS’ annual event, the British Pharmaceutical Conference in Manchester.