Although women have demonstrated a greater use of preventive care services, such as colon cancer screening and immunizations, they are failing when it comes to medication management.
There is a great discrepancy among men and women when it comes to how they are prescribed and adhere to their medications. Whereas women use more prescription drugs than men, they are less apt to receive prescription drugs according to clinical guidelines, and they do not comply as well with the medications they are prescribed, according to a new study by Medco Health Solutions, Inc.
As indicated by study findings, women of all ages take an average of 5 drugs, compared with less than 4 for men. Furthermore, even after accounting for prescription contraceptives, a greater number of women (68%) than men (59%) took at least 1 chronic or acute medication during the study period.
Prescription claims from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2010, for nearly 30 million insured Americans aged 18 and older were examined for the study. Despite using more medications, women were overall less adherent than men, and women were prescribed treatments outside recommended guidelines more often than men. Patients with cardiovascular disease and diabetes showed the most striking differences when, in 25 of 25 clinical measures, women demonstrated poorer outcomes than men.
Women may elect to discontinue use of a medication after they have already started it for a number of reasons, including adverse side effects, inability to tolerate the medication, or failure to see or feel improvements in their health. This could be due to the fact that women’s prescription drugs many times come with guidelines and dosing formulated using research conducted predominately on male patients.
Amy Steinkellner, PharmD, National Practice Leader, Medco Women’s Health Therapeutic Resource Center said, “It has long been demonstrated that there are physiological differences in women that affect their absorption and metabolism of medications, but this knowledge has not yet been widely translated into gender-specific dosing. To improve clinical care, avoid misdosing and potentially avoidable side effects in women, it is critical to consider gender in every aspect of drug development and management, from research and reporting of results all the way through to a personalized medicine treatment plan.”
Source: Medco.