Condition still critical: Compliance and persistence with osteoporosis medications

Despite multiple efforts at changing patient and provider behaviors to improve the use of pharmacologic medication for osteoporosis, the rates of compliance and persistence are still below desirable levels. This is a multifaceted problem that stems from a lack of knowledge, poor patient-provider communication, and powerful fears of the side effects of osteoporosis medications in general. This chapter covers issues of compliance and persistence as well as the ways in which osteoporosis causes or exacerbates psychosocial problems, including depression. Previous attempts to modify patient behavior in compliance and persistence have consistently failed, even though they have been well designed and based on the literature. I suggest here that cognitive reframing of osteoporosis in the minds of both patients and providers is essential to overcoming problems brought about by the media, the Internet, and websites that contain false information, and the poor educational efforts most patients receive.

Duke Scholars

Author Deborah T. Gold Psychiatry, Child & Family Mental Health & Community Psychia ...