According to Rhodes and colleagues, is the extent to which a therapeutic regimen is correctly taken. Patients with high adherence take their medication as prescribed by their health care providers; patients with low adherence do not take their medication as prescribed by their health care providers. Adherence is particularly low for immigrants given higher rates of poverty, decreased access to health care, and inexperience with and/or mistrust of the US health care system. The lack of bilingual and bicultural service provision and limited provider knowledge of traditional medicine also lead to reduced adherence among immigrants.
Rates of adherence for individual patients are reported as the percentage of prescribed doses taken by the patient as indicated over a specific time period. Calculating this rate requires assessing whether medications were taken on time and according to the prescribed dosage. Poor adherence to therapeutic regimens accounts for worsened health, more rapid...
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Osterberg, L., & Blaschke, T. (2005). Adherence to medication. The New England Journal of Medicine, 353(5), 487–497.
Rhodes, S. D. (2009). Tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, and other infections among farmworkers in the eastern United States. In T. A. Arcury & S. A. Quandt (Eds.), Latino farmworkers in the eastern United States: Health, safety and justice (pp. 131–152). New York: Springer.
Rhodes, S. D., Hergenrather, K. C., Wilkin, A. M., & Wooldredge, R. (2009). Adherence and HIV: A lifetime commitment. In S. A. Shumaker, J. K. Ockene, & K. Riekert (Eds.), The handbook of health behavior change (3rd ed., pp. 659–675). New York: Springer.
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Rhodes, S.D. (2012). Adherence. In: Loue, S., Sajatovic, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Immigrant Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5659-0_19
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