Medication adherence in patients with cardiovascular disease: current view of the problem

In this article the authors address the problem of poor medication adherence in patients with cardiovascular disease. Poor medication adherence significantly reduces efficacy of pharmacotherapy thus increasing risk of cardiovascular complications and higher treatment costs in routine clinical practice. This problem was first raised by a few foreign scientists in the 90s and then officially recognized by the World Health Organization in 2003. The article presents review on the prevalence of low medication adherence in patients with cardiovascular disease and describes key factors associated with decreased adherence. An overview of widely used indirect methods to measure medication adherence is presented as well. On the way to solve this problem, the development and implementation of various measures and interventions to improve medication adherence is actively carried out in recent years. The results of the most significant studies on the effectiveness of such interventions are also presented in the article. Positive influence on patient adherence was demonstrated, however, only a number of studies reported reduction of the risk of unfavorable clinical outcomes of cardiovascular diseases. This confirms the need to further study the problem of medication adherence focusing on routine clinical practice in Russia.