Why don’t patients take medicines? Exploring beliefs and attitudes

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Why don’t patients take medicines: exploring attitudes and beliefs Are there recurring themes in patients attitudes and beliefs which affect concordance with diabetic medication?

  • IRAS ID

    147520

  • Contact name

    Amanda Jane Elliott

  • Contact email

    jane.elliott1@nhs.net

  • Sponsor organisation

    NE Hants and farnham CCG

  • Research summary

    In summary the aims of this project are to
    • gain a better understanding of patient’s attitudes and beliefs to their diabetes
    • identify how these attitudes and beliefs affect concordance with medication
    • from these findings to develop an intervention to help improve patient’s concordance with treatment

    The process we propose to attain a better understanding of patients attitudes and beliefs, is to undertake a questionnaire on a broad range of patients (with diabetes). This will be followed by focus-groups to explore the findings of the questionnaire in more depth.

    • Questionnaire: The questionnaire aims to look very specifically at each individual’s attitudes and beliefs about their diabetes, diabetes medication and to identify any barriers to and facilitators for improving concordance.
    • Focus Group: The results from the questionnaire will be explored within focus groups to validate the findings and to identify possible interventions to improve concordance.

    It is recognised that improvement in health outcomes such as better control of symptoms, or a reduction in patients requiring secondary care treatments will take time to demonstrate and will require further research. However if this project provides insight into why patients don’t take medicines as prescribed and helps to design/develop interventions that will improve concordance there is a significant potential for improved outcomes for people with diabetes and a reduction in waste.

  • REC name

    North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    14/NW/0177

  • Date of REC Opinion

    14 Mar 2014

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion