We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Cookie Policy.

Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress
Sign In
Advertise with Us

Download Mobile App




Pill Colors Play a Role in Medication Adherence

By HospiMedica International staff writers
Posted on 17 Jan 2013
Print article
Changes in pill color increase the risk that patients will not complete their antiepileptic drug (AED) prescriptions, according to a new study.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, MA, USA) designed a nested case-control study involving 11,472 patients who failed to refill a prescription for an AED within 5 days of the time they ran out of pills; the controls, 50,050 patients, had no refill delays and were matched to cases by sex, age, number of refills, and the presence of a seizure disorder diagnosis. The researchers evaluated the two refills preceding nonpersistence, and compared the odds of discordance among cases and controls. In all, the drugs dispensed had 37 colors and four shapes.

The researchers found that color discordance preceded 136 cases (1.2%) but only 480 controls (0.97%); shape discordance preceded 18 cases (0.16%) and 54 controls (0.11%). Within a seizure disorder-diagnosis subgroup, the risk of nonpersistence after changes in pill color was also significantly elevated. The researchers concluded that changes in pill color significantly increase the odds of nonpersistence, and urge a reconsideration of current regulatory policy that permits wide variation in the appearance of bioequivalent drugs. The study was published on December 31, 2012, in Archives of Internal Medicine.

“A patient taking five medicines, each produced by five generic manufacturers, theoretically faces over 3,000 possible arrays of pill appearances for what are, chemically and clinically speaking, the same drugs,” said lead author Aaron Kesselheim, MD, JD. “Those choices could confuse patients and result in poor adherence to therapy.”

“Subjecting patients to this risk is absolutely senseless and absurd. Generic medicines should be required to look like their brand-name counterparts,” commented Archives of Internal Medicine associate Editor Kenneth Covinsky, MD. “With all the hurdles patients face, how on earth can we justify confusing them by needlessly changing the appearance of their medicines?”

Related Links:
Brigham and Women's Hospital

Gold Member
SARS‑CoV‑2/Flu A/Flu B/RSV Sample-To-Answer Test
SARS‑CoV‑2/Flu A/Flu B/RSV Cartridge (CE-IVD)
Gold Member
STI Test
Vivalytic Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Array
Silver Member
Wireless Mobile ECG Recorder
NR-1207-3/NR-1207-E
New
Medical Gas Blender
BlenderBuddy 1

Print article

Channels

Critical Care

view channel
Image: The permeable wearable electronics developed for long-term biosignal monitoring (Photo courtesy of CityUHK)

Super Permeable Wearable Electronics Enable Long-Term Biosignal Monitoring

Wearable electronics have become integral to enhancing health and fitness by offering continuous tracking of physiological signals over extended periods. This monitoring is crucial for understanding an... Read more

Surgical Techniques

view channel
Image: NTT and Olympus have begun the world\'s first joint demonstration experiment of a cloud endoscopy system (Photo courtesy of Olympus)

Cloud Endoscopy System Enables Real-Time Image Processing on the Cloud

Endoscopes, which are flexible tubes inserted into the body's natural openings for internal examination and biopsy collection, are becoming increasingly vital in medical diagnostics. Their minimal invasiveness... Read more

Health IT

view channel
Image: First ever institution-specific model provides significant performance advantage over current population-derived models (Photo courtesy of Mount Sinai)

Machine Learning Model Improves Mortality Risk Prediction for Cardiac Surgery Patients

Machine learning algorithms have been deployed to create predictive models in various medical fields, with some demonstrating improved outcomes compared to their standard-of-care counterparts.... Read more

Point of Care

view channel
Image: The PATHFAST hs-cTnI-II high-sensitivity troponin assay has been developed for the PATHFAST Biomarker Analyzer (Photo courtesy of Polymedco)

POC Myocardial Infarction Test Delivers Results in 17 Minutes

Chest pain is the second leading cause of emergency department (ED) visits by adults in the United States, generating over 7 million visits annually. In the event of a suspected heart attack, physicians... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2024 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.