A tool to identify patients with low medication adherence and explore the barriers preventing these patients from adhering to their medication schedule has been developed by the University of East Anglia with funding from Pharmacy Research UK.

Between a third and a half of patients prescribed medication for long term conditions do not take them as prescribed and until now there has been no effective tool for determining patient barriers to adherence in order to provide them with guidance and support.

The Identification of Medication Adherence Barriers Questionnaire (IMAB-Q) was tested by pharmacists in nine pharmacies as part of medicine use reviews (MURs) to explore feasibility of using this questionnaire in practice. The pharmacists thought that IMAB-Q was useful for identifying adherence barriers and particularly for raising topics that are not routinely discussed; the most common barriers for adherence were emotions and beliefs about consequences which are topics not routinely discussed in MURs.

Lead researcher Dr Bhattacharya said: “The IMAB-Q has shown to be very useful tool for pharmacists to identify patients who are experiencing difficulties with taking their medication as prescribed and indicates what guidance and support should be offered. We intend for the IMAB-Q to be used as a standard tool to guide and improve MURs and other adherence related consultations”.