Poor Pill-Taking Habits Tough to Change - HealthDay News on Yahoo! News. 23 Oct 2006

The findings from two studies of the treatment of ulcerative colitis to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology indicate that patients who adhered to the prescribed treatment (5-aminosalicyclic acid) had 12.5 percent lower medical costs than noncompliant patients.

Compliance rates follow:

• 57 % for patients aged 40 to 64
• 55 % for those aged 18 to 40
• 41 % for those over age 65
• 35 % for those under age 18

There were no significant differences in compliance for males and females.

A second study of 1,680 ulcerative colitis patients suggests that simply reducing dose requence count has no effect on compliance. Whether patients took 4, 6, 9 or 16 pills a day, compliance decreased from 100 percent at the start of the study to about 65 percent after three months.

The cost study was funded by Shire Pharmaceuticals, and the dosing study by Proctor & Gamble.

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