Do senior citizens in São Paulo take their medications as prescribed?

What is it about?

We suspected that senior citizens in an outpatient clinic in São Paulo were not taking their medications as prescribed. We therefore conducted a study with 159 patients from our clinic and asked them a series of different questions about their medicine-taking habits and about their personal characteristics. The people who participated were mostly women (a little over two-thirds), were an average of 68 years old, and took an average of 6.5 medications per day. The most commonly-taken drugs were medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Fewer than 60% of our participants took their medications as described; the only group of patients who took over 75% of their medications were those with high income. While it is unfortunate that we found out that senior citizens were not taking their medications as directed, we found an important piece of information: income levels may explain a part of this behavior.

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Why is it important?

There is not much research (especially research published in English) on medication usage in Brazil. The studies that already exist are also normally performed in smaller cities and towns, not in large urban environments. Ours is the first--to our knowledge--describing medication usage in an urban group of Brazilians that should technically be in good conditions. All of our patients were retired government workers receiving a government pension, meaning that they had had good jobs for many years, were fairly well educated, and had a steady income. We believe that if this group of people is having a difficult time taking their medications as prescribed, it must be even worse for people of lower income levels or lower socioeconomic statuses.

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