Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Poor medication adherence in clinical trials: consequences and solutions

Abstract

Poor adherence to medicines in clinical trials can undermine the value of the trials; for example, by compromising estimates of the benefits and risks of a medicine. In this article, we highlight such consequences and also discuss approaches to tackle this problem.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Marrazzo, J.M. et al. Tenofovir-based pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV infection among African women. N. Engl. J. Med. 372, 509–518 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Blaschke, T.F. et al. Adherence to medications. Insights arising from studies on the unreliable link between prescribed and actual drug dosing histories. Annu. Rev. Pharmacol. Toxicol. 52, 275–301 (2012).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Bhatia, S. et al. Non adherence to oral mercaptopurine and risk of relapse in Hispanic and non-Hispanic white children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. J. Clin. Oncol. 17, 2094–2101 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Marin, D. et al. Adherence is a critical factor for achieving molecular responses in patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia who achieve complete cytogenic responses on imatinib. J. Clin. Oncol. 28, 2381–2388 (2010).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Corral, G. et al. Adherence with antihypertensive drug therapy and the risk of heart failure in clinical practice. Hypertension 66, 742–749 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alasdair Breckenridge.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Related links

Related links

FURTHER INFORMATION

CONSORT 2010 Statement: updated guidelines for reporting parallel group randomised trials

SPIRIT 2013 Statement

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Breckenridge, A., Aronson, J., Blaschke, T. et al. Poor medication adherence in clinical trials: consequences and solutions. Nat Rev Drug Discov 16, 149–150 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.1

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research