Medication adherence refers to the extent to which patients’ act of taking medication corresponds with the recommendations made by their health-care providers and advocates.
P.A.W. Union‘s Adherence Program includes, but is not limited to periodic assessments, in-home education meetings, and etc. Our program has improved member’s trend of adherence when compared to Opioid Contracts, especially in opioid naive patients. As well as, has proven opioids can safely be prescribed to patients’ suffering from non-cancer insufferable pain, severe chronic pain, and agonizing illness.
Adherence has commonly been studied in clinical conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and hypertension and is well characterized in different patient groups, including newly diagnosed and pre-existing patients. However, in patients with non-cancer pain treated with opioids, the adherence data are limited.
Existing opioid patients have frequently been associated with long-term opioid use, with controversial reports available on the abuse, misuse, and opioid overdose-related deaths, compared to the benefits of long-term use.
The adherence measure has been cut off in 80% of previous studies (Broekmans et al., 2009; Timmerman et al., 2016). These studies do not reflect the real medication-taking behavior, and the patient’s adherence behavior may likely be misclassified and misinterpreted.
Reported by P.A.W. Union, shared with physicians and healthcare institutions: “monitoring adherence and thoroughly educating our members from the start of opioid therapy in chronic illness and pain has a lower incidence of opioid abuse; have substantially improved members’ quality of life; reduced the costs of physical, emotional, and mental health issues associated with neglecting the treatment of chronic pain.”
Adherence Program Form (pdf)
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