Identifying Barriers to Adherence Amongst Patients Speaking Different Languages

Abstract

Specific Aims: To compare the factors associated with patient non-adherence to medications in relationship to preferred language. Subjects: United States residents enrolled in Medicare Part D and MTM eligible January 2018 through December 2018. Methods: The sample population was divided into preferred language of either English or non-English. Targeted medication review (TMR) from January 2018 to December 2018 was provided by SinfoníaRx. Reasons given for non-adherence between English and non-English were grouped into one of the five following categories: adverse drug reaction, cost, forgetfulness, misunderstood instructions/self-adjusted, and refill issues. English and non-English groups were compared by counting the number of patients citing each reason and calculating percentages. The composite of the five reported patient barriers (adverse drug reaction, cost, forgetfulness, misunderstood instructions/self-adjusted, and refill issues) was compared between the two language groups using a Chi square test with an alpha priori level of 0.05. Main Results: A total of 201 patients were included in this study (100 English and 101 non-English). The majority of patients resided between 60-69 years of age for English patients and was evenly distributed for age ranges between 60-69 and 70-79 for non-English patients. The composite of all five reported patient barriers compared between English and non-English is statistically significant (p=0.0043). Conclusions: Factors associated with patient non-adherence to medications appear to be dependent on preferred language.