Identification of Cardiovascular Patient Groups at Risk for Poor Medication Adherence: A Cluster Analysis.

The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot show that young age, employment, few medications, or unhealthy lifestyle caused poor adherence. Adherence was self-reported with the Modified Morisky Scale, so real-world adherence may be lower than reported. 38 patients did not complete the adherence questionnaire, and nonresponders may have had poorer adherence. All patients came from one hospital screening program with similar reimbursement, so results may not apply to other healthcare systems. Comorbidity data were unavailable, and blood pressure and LDL were measured only at follow-up, which may confound interpretation. The clustering was exploratory, and some variables, including medication use, LDL, education, and belief groups, did not differ significantly between clusters.

The authors state they have no funding or conflicts of interest to disclose.

Do not conclude that targeting young, employed patients with few medications will improve adherence. The study only observed that this cluster had lower self-reported adherence; it did not test an intervention, and adherence was measured by questionnaire.