Autoimmune disease patients fail to take medications as prescribed, study shows

The study showed that fifty percent of patients with autoimmune diseases routinely took their medications as prescribed. However, 20-30% of prescriptions were never filled and only 35% of newly diagnosed patients trust their physician's recommendations alone concerning new medications.

The kit is designed, in part, to empower the patient with critical decision making tools so that he or she is able to make educated choices based on the information provided to them. Also included are decision trees that illustrate how autoimmune patients react when offered a new therapy. Will the patient agree with the new prescription or seek another opinion? Do patients research the drug using search engines such as Google or WebMD? Or do they seek guidance from other patients?

The study also showed that once patients understood the benefits and the goal of the treatment, they were far more apt to comply. A focus group of autoimmune patients viewing several vignettes of a physician giving a patient a prescription, indicated by a wide margin that they would adhere to the treatment if the doctor took an extra 30 seconds to explain to the patient the reason for the introduction of new medication in preventing or modifying the disease, patients would comply with their recommendations.

AARDA President and Executive Director Virginia T. Ladd thinks that the complied information will assist patients in making a decision that is safe and effective for them.

"Patients receive a lot of information about the side effects of their treatment through advertising and inserts that are attached to their prescriptions. They need a way to balance that information with the benefits offered to them through therapeutic treatments. This way they can decide if they want to adhere to the treatment plan prescribed by their healthcare professional. We hope our new brochure on the topic will be helpful in that decision making process," said Ladd.

To order the Risk Benefit kit, please call the AARDA office at (586) 776-3900. A kit includes the Risk Benefit study, 25 brochures and folders for $15.00. An order of 25 brochures is $5.00.

American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) is the nation's only non-profit organization dedicated to bringing a national focus to autoimmunity as a category of disease and a major women's health issue and promoting a collaborative research effort in order to find better treatments and a cure for all autoimmune diseases. For more information, please visit www.aarda.org.