Adherence To Long-Term Therapies: Evidence for Action

July 2003  | World Health Organization

Poor adherence to the long-term treatment of chronic diseases, like cardiovascular diseases, HIV/AIDS, or depression is an increasing, world-wide problem of striking magnitude. Adherence problems are observed in all situations where the self-administration of treatment is required, regardless of the type of disease.

A number of rigorous reviews have found that in developed countries, adherence among patients suffering from chronic diseases averages only 50%, and it is even lower in developing countries

In Gambia, China, and the United States only 27%, 43% and 51%, respectively, of patients adhere to their medication regimen for high blood pressure. Similar patterns have been reported for other conditions such as depression (40%-70%), asthma (43% for acute treatments and 28% for maintenance), and HIV/AIDS (37%-83%).

These are some of the findings of the WHO’s newly published report entitled Adherence to long-term therapies: evidence for action.

The report was developed using a wide variety of chronic conditions and risk factors and looked for their commonalities. Lessons from those diseases with greater experience on adherence interventions, such as hypertension (high blood pressure), asthma, diabetes, and tuberculosis (Directly Observed Treatment Short Course or DOTS), served as a guide to explore many others of which very little is known, such as cancer, depression, epilepsy, HIV/AIDS and tobacco smoking.

 Read the complete report here.