It's time for we, in the business of healthcare communications, to delve deeper into patients' realities and embrace the irrational.
A recent study commissioned by CVS Caremark, delved deeper into the minds of patients who stopped taking their prescription medications. An impressive percentage of patients gave bizarre reasons for stopping their meds, like that taking medication:
“Interfered with personal priorities such as taking care of family members”
“Compromised social aspects of their lives”
“Made them feel like they were losing control of their lives and sometimes by stopping medication they felt they were resisting authority”
“Believed they knew better than their doctors what was good for them”
Key lesson: there is often an irrational (human) reason behind non-compliance. So, interventions that appeal purely to the rational side of human beings, like reminders or education, will only go so far.
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