BIG PHARMA'S MEDICATION COMPLIANCE PROGRAMMES: JUST SAY NO!
"To comply or not to comply. For several years, pharmaceutical companies have been investing in new ways to retain their "customers", for example under the guise of programmes designed to help patients follow long-term treatment courses. Treatment compliance, i.e. the notion that a patient follows to the letter a treatment prescribed by a doctor or recomended by a pharmacist, has its good and bad sides. A patient who stops treatment to soon may suffer ill efects. Sometimes, however, a patient has good reasons for stopping treatment, because of adverse effects, for example, or inefficacy. The decision to continue or to stop long-term treatment can be a difficult one, and should be discussed by the patient and a healthcare profissional.
Pharmaceutical companies'intrusion into patient "coaching" started in the United States, where drugs are more heavily commercialised than in Europe. Pharmaceutical companies set their own prices in the Unites States, and can promote precription-only drugs directly to the public. "Medication compliance programmes", which are simply a sophisticated form of advertising, are flourishing. Such programmes are starting to enter France by the back door."
Revista Prescrire International
Fevereiro 2007
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