Following up what I wrote about patients not taking their medication, comes this retrospective study. It concludes that diabetics who do not adhere to their oral antihyperglycemic medication have more than twice the risk of hospitalization. More concerning was the percentage of patients who did not take medication for potentially serious conditions (diabetes, hypertension, and an elevated cholesterol):
The proportion of enrollees who were nonadherent to the antihyperglycemic drug regimen in 2001 was 28.9%, whereas 18.8 and 26.9% were nonadherent to antihypertensive and lipid-modifying drugs, respectively.
