About this Research Topic

Background

Adequate implementation of evidence-based long-term therapies is an issue of utmost importance. It has a direct impact on both individual and public health, as well as on the sustainability of healthcare systems. Unfortunately, despite more than half a century of extensive research and practical and awareness-raising activities, medication adherence remains far from perfect.

Many reasons are responsible for non-adherence, and the issue is complicated by the rapid aging of the global society, the rising tide of non-communicable chronic diseases, multimorbidity, and associated polypharmacy. This might be further exacerbated by certain conditions, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. However, one thing is perfectly clear: medication non-adherence is no longer merely perceived as a ‘patient problem’. In fact, medication adherence depends on many non-patient-related factors, and thus, is an important indicator of the quality of care. Therefore, instead of blaming, patients need to be supported in their therapeutic journeys. Thus, all the stakeholders need to collectively create adherence-enabling environments, and support patients in the execution of their therapies.

To achieve this aim, medication adherence enhancing interventions that are proven to work are urgently needed. In order to invest scarce resources such as time, money, and workforce wisely, these interventions need to be supported by clear evidence. Only with optimal designing and reporting of studies, fair benchmarking of available interventions will be possible. Therefore, rigorous research in this area is of paramount importance.

This Research Topic aims to highlight recent advances in research on interventions targeting medication adherence. A wide range of studies addressing these interventions are welcome, including both original research and review articles looking at, but not limited to, the following:

-The implementation of various strategies in real-life conditions, with a particular interest in pharmacoeconomic evaluations,

-Also including healthcare system-level research, covering such issues as benchmarking of interventions with a special interest in their effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.

-Studies are expected to look at their transferability, sustainability, and applicability to various local scenarios, scalability, and, last but not least, reimbursement models.

-Although case studies of good practices are invited, system-wide approaches and cross-border studies are particularly welcome.


Please note: In order to produce research guaranteeing stakeholders to be provided with high-quality guidance, studies are expected to follow state-of-the-art methodology, including the ABC adherence taxonomy [1] and the EMERGE reporting guidelines [2].

[1]. Vrijens B et al. A new taxonomy for describing and defining adherence to medications. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2012 May;73(5):691-705.

[2]. De Geest S et al. ESPACOMP Medication Adherence Reporting Guideline (EMERGE). Ann Intern Med. 2018 Jul 3;169(1):30-35.

Keywords: medication adherence, patient adherence, persistence, non-adherence, patient compliance, drug design, medication adherence enhancing interventions, noncommunicable chronic diseases (NCDs), pharmacoeconomics, pharmacoepidemiology.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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