抄録
To clarify the present status of drug compliance in Japan and to help improve the administration appropriate drug therapy, we made an investigation of the literature regarding drug compliance in order to evalvate this problem.
We reviewed the literature related to the present status of drug compliance published between January 1994 and December 1996, using the on-line database of JMEDIC1N and the CD-ROM of the Medical Center Magazine.
The number of articles thus obtained totaled 30 and the number of the patients investigated amounted to 9710. The non-compliance rate in these 30 articles ranged from 23.1% to 61.5% with a mean of 32.2%. One of the reasons for such a wide variation was considered to be due to differences in the definition of the non-compliance. It has yet to be elucidated as to exactly what frequency of not taking drugs and what drug-remaining rate should be regarded as noncompliance. Regarding the reasons for non-compliance, a number of problems were cited such as “forgot to take drugs inadvertently” in which the patient is at fault, and “too many kinds of drugs to take” in which the drug therapy itself is considered to possibly be too complicated Therefore, when initially providing guidance regarding proper drug administration, it is essential to clearly make the patients understand the necessity of the drug therapy.
