News Release

Mail reminders help patients stick to antidepressant meds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Center for Advancing Health

Mailed reminders to physicians and their patients who take antidepressant drugs can help patients stick with their medication routine, according to a new study. The reminders significantly increased the number of patients who took their medications routinely, compared with patients who did not receive the reminders.

"If a hospitalization or a suicide due to depression were prevented in even one patient who experienced greater adherence to therapy, then the intervention would have also been deemed clinically significant," says Lauren Hoffman, Pharm.D., of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida.

After only one month of drug therapy, overall adherence rates were similar between the group of patients receiving the mailings and the group that did not get a reminder. However, there was a significantly higher adherence rate among the mailing group patients after three and six months' of medication.

Previous studies have found that about 25 percent of patients who are prescribed antidepressant drugs take their medication faithfully during the first month of the therapy, and that adherence tapers off as patients continue therapy past the acute stage of 12 weeks.

Hoffman and colleagues tracked adherence among 9,564 patients assigned to 7,021 physicians by checking prescription refill records for each patient and looking for potential gaps in their medication routine.

When patients appeared to have missed more than 10 days of medication based on refill records, the researchers sent a letter to each doctor identifying the potentially non-adherent patients. They also sent a letter to the non-adherent patients, reminding them how and when to take their medication and how to schedule regular visits with their physician.

The researchers found that adherence rates differed among patients depending on what type of antidepressant drug they were taking. Patients taking SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, like Prozac or Zoloft, were more apt to stick with their medication than patients taking TCAs, or tricyclic antidepressants, like Elavil.

Although the research did not evaluate the intervention's cost-effectiveness, Hoffman and colleagues suggest that the $30,000 spent on the intervention could be cost-effective when compared to the estimated cost of the lost productivity of depressed workers.

The study is published in the January 2003 issue of the American Journal of Managed Care and was supported by a grant from Eli Lilly Corporation

###

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Health Behavior News Service: 202-387-2829 or http://www.hbns.org.
Interviews: Contact Lauren Hoffman at Lauren.hoffman@bcbsfl.com.
American Journal of Managed Care: Visit http://www.ajmc.com or call 732- 656-1006.


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.