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Alyce S Adams

Publications and source records attributed to Alyce S Adams.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Cost-related medication nonadherence among elderly and disabled medicare beneficiaries: a national survey 1 year before the medicare drug benefit.

BACKGROUND: Prior to implementation of the Medicare drug benefit, we estimated the prevalence of cost-related medication nonadherence (CRN) among Medicare enrollees, including elderly and nonelderly disabled beneficiaries. METHODS: In the fall of 2004, detailed measures of CRN (skipping or reducing doses or not filling prescriptions because of cost) were added to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey. We examined the prevalence of CRN nationally and by Medicare eligibility subgroups (elderly vs nonelderly disabled beneficiaries), drug coverage status, socioeconomic status, self-rated health, and number of chronic medical conditions. RESULTS: In a national sample of 13 835 noninstitutionalized Medicare enrollees, 29% of the disabled and 13% of the elderly beneficiaries reported CRN; those in fair to poor health with multiple comorbidities and without coverage were most at risk. Among the disabled enrollees with 4 or more morbidities, 52% (95% confidence interval [CI], 43.3%-60.3%) without drug coverage skipped prescriptions or doses compared with 26% (95% CI, 17.7%-34.8%) with Medicaid drug coverage. Those with partial drug coverage through Medigap policies or Medicare health maintenance organizations reported intermediate rates of CRN. The adjusted odds ratio of CRN among disabled enrollees in poor (vs good) health was 3.9 (95% CI, 1.7-9.2), whereas for those with 4 or more (vs <4) comorbidities, the odds ratio of CRN was 2.7 (95% CI, 1.7-4.1). CONCLUSIONS: One year before Medicare Part D implementation, Medicare beneficiaries reported high rates of CRN. Rates are highest among nonelderly disabled beneficiaries, but among both elderly and disabled beneficiaries, CRN is exacerbated by poor health, multiple morbidities, and limited drug coverage. Given the high cost sharing under Part D, it is important to closely monitor CRN in high-risk subgroups.

Aged↗
PubMed2006

Physician alerts to increase antidepressant adherence: fax or fiction?

BACKGROUND: Many managed care organizations use feedback based on electronically maintained claims data to alert physicians to potential treatment problems, including patient medication nonadherence. However, the efficacy of such interventions for improving adherence among patients treated for depression is unknown. METHODS: We examined an antidepressant compliance program consisting of faxed alerts to physicians beginning May 2003 using interrupted time series analysis to evaluate its impact on rates of antidepressant adherence between May 2002 and May 2004 among members of the managed care plan of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, which is a health plan operating in 3 states in New England, with corporate headquarters in Wellesley, Mass. The program alerted prescribing physicians to patients with gaps of more than 10 days in refilling antidepressant prescriptions during the first 180 days of treatment. Our outcome measures were rates of nonadherence among patients with refill gaps of more than 10 days ("delayed refill") and proportion of days without treatment within the first 180 days of treatment. RESULTS: A total of 13 128 patients (> or = 18 years of age) who were starting treatment with antidepressants met the study criteria. Rates of nonadherence among patients with delayed refills remained constant (P = .22) over the 2-year study period, averaging 75% (95% confidence interval, 72.7%-77.3%). Rates of antidepressant nonadherence significantly increased over time (P = .04), with an average of 40% (95% confidence interval, 38.4%-41.6%) of days without dispensed antidepressants available during treatment episodes. CONCLUSIONS: Using real-time pharmacy information to alert physicians regarding patient adherence was not successful in increasing antidepressant adherence rates among members of the managed care plan. Effectiveness of electronically triggered, patient-specific, faxed feedback should be carefully evaluated before widespread implementation, because faxes are insufficient as a stand-alone policy tool.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Racial differences in impact of coverage on diabetes self-monitoring in a health maintenance organization.

BACKGROUND: Insurance coverage of patient self-management devices like self-monitoring blood glucose (SMBG) equipment may help to reduce race-related barriers to effective care. OBJECTIVES: We examined whether providing free home glucose monitors had greater impacts on self-monitoring among black versus white patients with diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN: Using electronic medical record data (1992-1996), we used longitudinal survival analysis to examine racial differences in rates of initiation of SMBG after coverage and rates of discontinuation of SMBG 18 months after initiation. We used piecewise Cox models to compare relative rates of SMBG initiation between black and white patients before and after the policy. SUBJECTS: The study cohort included 2275 continuously enrolled adult patients with diabetes in a large, staff model HMO. Multivariate models were restricted to patients using oral therapy. RESULTS: Controlling for time-dependent and fixed effects, black patients were as likely to initiate SMBG as white patients before the policy (hazard ratio 1.14; 95% confidence interval 0.86-1.50) but more likely after the policy (hazard ratio 1.33; 95% confidence interval 1.01-1.76). Among postpolicy SMBG initiators, black patients were consistently at higher risk of SMBG discontinuation than white patients over time (P < 0.05). By the end of follow-up, discontinuation rates were 78% among black patients and 64% among white patients. CONCLUSIONS: The policy is effective in triggering additional diabetes patients to self-manage, particularly black patients. However, persistence after initiation of monitoring is short-lived. Although our results show the potential of such policies to narrow racial gaps in self-management among racial minority groups, further interventions may be needed to promote long-term adherence.

Black or African American↗
PubMed2005

Antibiotic use following a Korean national policy to prohibit medication dispensing by physicians.

This study investigated whether a Korean national policy prohibiting doctors from dispensing drugs as of 2000 selectively reduced inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in viral illness compared with bacterial illness. We assessed the proportions of episodes prescribed an antibiotic and the number of different antibiotics prescribed for patients with viral and bacterial illness episodes before and after the policy. The nationally representative sample consisted of 50,999 episodes (18,656 viral and 7758 bacterial pre-policy, 16,736 viral and 7849 bacterial post-policy) from 1372 primary care clinics. We used generalized estimating equations to investigate changes in antibiotic prescribing after the policy, and multiple linear regression to determine provider factors associated with reductions in inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for viral illness. After the dispensing restriction, antibiotic prescribing declined substantially for patients with viral illness (from 80.8 to 72.8%, relative risk (RR) = 0.89, [95% confidence interval: 0.86, 0.91], p<0.001), and only minimally for patients with bacterial illness (from 91.6 to 89.7%, RR = 0.98, [0.97, 0.99], p = 0.017). Reductions in antibiotic prescribing were significantly larger (RR = 0.90, [0.87, 0.93], p<0.001) for patients with viral illness. The number of different antibiotics prescribed per episode also decreased significantly after the policy, but there were no significant differences in these reductions between viral and bacterial illness. The dispensing restriction also reduced prescribing of non-antibiotic drugs, with no difference by diagnosis. Provider factors found to be associated with reduced inappropriate antibiotic prescribing were younger age and practice location in an urban area. Prohibiting doctors from dispensing drugs reduced prescribing overall, both of antibiotics and other drugs, and selectively reduced inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in viral illness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Effect of switching antipsychotics on antiparkinsonian medication use in schizophrenia: population-based study.

BACKGROUND: The extent to which atypical antipsychotics have a lower incidence of extrapyramidal symptoms than typical antipsychotics has not been well-evaluated in community practice. AIMS: To examine the effects of switching antipsychotics on antiparkinsonian medication use among individuals with schizophrenia in UK general practices. METHOD: We included those switched from typical to atypical antipsychotics (n=209) or from one typical antipsychotic to another (n=261) from 1994 to 1998. RESULTS: Antiparkinsonian drug prescribing dropped by 9.2% after switching to atypical antipsychotics (P<0.0001). Switching to olanzapine decreased the rate by 19.2% (P<0.0001), but switching to risperidone had no impact. After switching from one typical antipsychotic to another, antiparkinsonian drug prescribing increased by 12.9% (P<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Reduction in antiparkinsonian medication use after switching to atypical antipsychotics was substantial in community practice but not as large as in randomised controlled trials. The rate of reduction varied according to the type of medication.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Race differences in long-term diabetes management in an HMO.

OBJECTIVE: We examined race differences in diabetes outcomes over 4-8 years in a single HMO. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We identified black and white adult diabetic patients who were continuously enrolled (1992-2001) and in whom diabetes was 1) diagnosed before 1994 (n = 1,686) or 2) newly diagnosed in 1994-1997 (n = 1,280). We used hierarchical models to estimate the effect of race on average annual HbA(1c) (A1C) controlling for baseline A1C, BMI, and age, as well as annual measures of type of diabetes medications, diabetes-related hospitalization, time and the number of A1C tests, physician visits, and nondiabetes medications. Stratifying by sex accounted for significant interactions between sex and race. RESULTS: At baseline, black and white patients had similar rates of A1C testing and physician visits, but blacks had higher unadjusted A1C values. In multivariate models, among patients with previously diagnosed diabetes, average A1C was nonsignificantly 0.11 higher (95% CI -0.12 to 0.34) in black than in white men but was 0.30 higher (0.14-0.46; P = 0.0007) in black than in white women. Among patients with newly diagnosed diabetes, the adjusted black-white gap was 0.49 among men (0.17-0.80; P = 0.007) and was 0.05 among women (-0.20 to -0.31), which was positive but not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Factors other than the quality of care may explain persistent race differences in A1C in this setting. Future interventions should target normalization of A1C by identifying potential psychosocial barriers to therapy intensification among patients and clinicians and development of culturally appropriate interventions to aid patients in successful self-management.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Does antidepressant adherence have an effect on glycemic control among diabetic antidepressant users?

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between adherence to antidepressant medications and HbA1c levels among patients with diabetes in a managed care setting. METHOD: The analysis included measures of HbA1c levels before, during, and after initial antidepressant use among 568 patients with diabetes enrolled in the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care insurance plan from 1991-1995. Adherence was defined as four refills in a six-month period after the first antidepressant prescription. General linear models using SAS PROC MIXED were used to estimate the effects of covariates including antidepressant adherence on HbA1c levels over time, comparing patients who were adherent to antidepressant medications to those patients who were non-adherent to antidepressant medications. RESULTS: Adherence to antidepressant treatment was not significantly associated with HbA1c levels among diabetic patients who are antidepressant users. Younger age, use of insulin and oral medications, and female gender were all significantly associated with HbA1c levels over time. CONCLUSIONS: Although we did not observe any association between level of adherence to antidepressant therapy among diabetic patients and levels of glucose control, our results confirm previously established associations between patient characteristics and glycemic control. Further research is needed to disentangle the complex relationship among antidepressant treatment adherence and diabetes outcomes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Barriers to self-monitoring of blood glucose among adults with diabetes in an HMO: a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Recent studies suggest that patients at greatest risk for diabetes complications are least likely to self-monitor blood glucose. However, these studies rely on self-reports of monitoring, an unreliable measure of actual behavior. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between patient characteristics and self-monitoring in a large health maintenance organization (HMO) using test strips as objective measures of self-monitoring practice. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 4,565 continuously enrolled adult managed care patients in eastern Massachusetts with diabetes. Any self-monitoring was defined as filling at least one prescription for self-monitoring test strips during the study period (10/1/92-9/30/93). Regular SMBG among test strip users was defined as testing an average of once per day for those using insulin and every other day for those using oral sulfonylureas only. Measures of health status, demographic data, and neighborhood socioeconomic status were obtained from automated medical records and 1990 census tract data. RESULTS: In multivariate analyses, lower neighborhood socioeconomic status, older age, fewer HbA1c tests, and fewer physician visits were associated with lower rates of self-monitoring. Obesity and fewer comorbidities were also associated with lower rates of self-monitoring among insulin-managed patients, while black race and high glycemic level (HbA1c>10) were associated with less frequent monitoring. For patients taking oral sulfonylureas, higher dose of diabetes medications was associated with initiation of self-monitoring and HbA1c lab testing was associated with more frequent testing. CONCLUSIONS: Managed care organizations may face the greatest challenges in changing the self-monitoring behavior of patients at greatest risk for poor health outcomes (i.e., the elderly, minorities, and people living in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods).

Adult↗