Chapters authored
Knowledge, Adherence, and Quality of Life among Warfarin Therapy Users
Patient knowledge and understanding of the therapy are an important factor in treatment success. Multiple factors were identified to cause a treatment failure such as side effects of the medications, rejection of the diagnosis by patients, lack of patient understanding about their medication, noncompliance, and the cost of medication. In addition, improvements in patient medication counseling and education may help in prevention of many adverse drug interactions, drug-drug or food-drug interactions, in turn enhancing medication adherence which depends basically on a patient’s acceptance of the information about the health threat itself. For these reasons, an evaluation of patients’ knowledge of medicine and its use may help screen for problems in therapy and improve therapeutic outcomes. The results of this evaluation may also be used to educate providers about areas of potential problems in which they may be able to influence change.
Part of the book: Anticoagulation Drugs