Take medication every day or die prematurely? 30% of patients would choose to die at a younger age rather than take their treatment.
Researchers at the University of California and North Carolina (USA) interviewed 1,000 patients with cardiovascular disease to understand how they relate to their medical prescriptions. Volunteers were asked to report how many years they were willing to lose or how much money they were willing to cash out to avoid taking their daily medication.
The results of this survey reveal that 8% of patients offer two years of their life, 21% between a week and a year to have the freedom to stop swallowing pills. On the other hand, 70% say they do not want to make any concessions and will take their treatment meticulously so as not to lose a single moment of their life.
The findings also reveal that 13% of those questioned would choose to die of a heart attack for a life without medication and that 21% of patients would be willing to pay $ 1,000 (874 euros) not to be forced into daily treatment.
Non-compliance with treatments: a cost of 9 billion
These figures help to better understand the critical situation of non-compliance with drugs in France.
Only 40% of patients affected by one of the six main chronic pathologies (diabetes, heart failure, hypercholesterolemia, etc.) take their medication correctly. An alarming situation. Because the avoidable cost of complications due to poor adherence to treatment would amount to 9 billion euros in one year in France.
“If all French people suffering from arterial hypertension, asthma, Type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart failure or hypercholesterolemia were taking their treatment correctly, nearly 9 billion euros could be saved in a single year ”according to the conclusions of a study conducted by IMS Health-France ( research and consulting company for the drug industries) and the Pharmaceutical Industry Think Tank (Crip) published on November 12, 2014.
According to the authors of this study, “for thearterial hypertension, for example, the cost of cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) amounts to 4.4 billion euros in one year. That of coronary heart disease, induced by type 2 diabetes, reached 1,463 million euros ”.
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