Ipsos Health - Patient Adherence Model

Why do patients, after they have voluntarily made an appointment to see a physician to seek advice, guidance and potentially therapy, do they then not follow this advice? The rate of mal-adherence, whereby patients do not follow the advice of their physician is estimated to be around 50%. This results in poor health outcomes for the patient, below the response anticipated from the line of therapy chosen or advice offered. This can subsequently lead to an impact on the healthcare system in terms of higher costs and wastage.

 At Ipsos Health, we have spent a number of years developing buying process models for our clients, which follows the flow of traffic through the healthcare system at key points in the intervention between physician and patient. What we have found in a large number of these studies is considerable drop out rates of patients due to mal-adherence issues.

Ipsos Health has developed an Adherence Dynamics Model to understand the occasions, triggers and emotions which drive mal-adherence and provides guidance for how to develop programmes to increase rates of adherence.  One of the main insights we provide is that adherence behaviours are rarely logical – to uncover these drivers requires complex research tools to go beyond the superficial facts.
White Paper: Adherence to Prescription Therapy »

The framework approach we have developed helps focus on which groups of patients are more (or less) likely to respond to an adherence message and on which occasions. This means that adherence programmes can be targeted for maximum impact.

At Ipsos Health, we are proud to be the primary research stakeholder on the National Consumer’s League Patient Adherence Initiative, and have worked extensively with pharmaceutical companies and patient organisations to develop a better understanding of how to address the critical issue of mal-adherence.