DO CONTROLLED TRIALS OF ADHERENCE TO ANTIHYPERTENSIVE DRUGS GENERATE HIGHER RATES?
EVIDENCE FROM THE LITERATURE Iskedjian M1, Piwko C1, Walker J2, Vicente C1, Einarson T3, 1PharmIdeas Research and Consulting Inc, Oakville, ON, Canada; 2Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada; 3University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Controlled trials (CTs) of cardiovascular (CVS) therapies often report relatively high adherence rates, in the neighborhood of 80 – 95%. However, the compliance literature refers to lower rates. We suspect that the CT environment may provide conditions that result in artificially increased adherence rates. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to review the adherence literature both qualitatively and quantitatively to determine whether rates from noncomparative studies were lower than those from CTs. METHODS: We accepted all noncomparative studies that reported adherence rates to CVS drugs, including clinical trials, database studies, chart reviews, or observational cohort studies. There must have been a minimum of 25 patients under study, suff
