Adherence to long-term anticoagulation treatment, what is known and what the future might hold

What is it about?

It is well known that people do not take their medicines as prescribed. Non-adherence to anticoagulation has been measured extensively in the past, however the psychology of medicines use in anticoagulation has seldom been considered. This article takes what has been measured in the past and applies psychological models to explain the non-adherence problem in anticoagulation.

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Why is it important?

By applying psychology to what is already known we can start to tackle the non-adherence problem head on rather than just measuring it. This is particularly important as with vitamin-K antagonists like warfarin, we had some means of telling whether or not patients were taking their anticoagulant. This is not possible with the new generation of oral anticoagulants, therefore healthcare services address factors contributing to non-adherence proactively rather than reactively.