To support healthcare professionals in improving adherence, a series of articles has been developped to provide digestible learning resources around the role behavior science plays in adherence, including practical insights relating to therapy areas. The articles provide a useful companion to a series of masterclasses where the subjects of adherence and behavioral science are explored in more depth.
Recent breakthroughs in behavioral science demonstrate that people make decisions, including treatment adherence decisions, according to two systems of thinking: System 1, which is rapid but intuitive and biased, and System 2, which is more rational and reflective but complex. Humans tend to favor System 1. Both System 1 and System 2 lead to intentional…
Non-adherence factors may be organized into five categories: socioeconomic, health care team and system-related, disease-related, therapy-related, and patient-related. Behavioral drivers of non-adherence are both intentional and unintentional. Despite extensive research, no single model has yet been shown to be highly accurate in predicting patient adherence. Treatment adherence offers a significant opportunity for improved outcomes Characterizing…
Increasing adherence to therapy represents a significant opportunity area for improving outcomes. Increased adherence can improve the clinical outcomes and quality of life of patients with neurological disorders.1,2 Patients with Parkinson’s disease have higher medical-care needs, often miss work and require care; these effects contribute to the overall economic burden.3 Patients with uncontrolled epileptic seizures…
Neurological disorders are a growing burden for healthcare systems worldwide. Neurological disorders contributed to 5–10% of the global burden of disease in 2005 (assessed in disability-adjusted life years).1 Conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy have significant associated costs and reduced quality of life for patients.2,3 Treatment of these chronic diseases requires patients to incorporate…
Interventions designed to improve therapy adherence are often designed without any understanding of what drives patient behavior; as a result, they are only moderately effective. The Behavior Change Wheel (BCW) framework is a useful model for understanding and characterizing adherence behavior. The BCW highlights the importance of addressing patients’ specific concerns regarding their menopause therapy. …
The Patient Activation Measure (PAM) and Medication Adherence Questionnaire (MAQ) are tools that providers can use to evaluate patients’ health behavior. The PAM can be used to evaluate patients’ ability to manage their health and conditions; the MAQ can be used to evaluate patients’ level of adherence to their prescribed therapies. Providers can use the…
The human mind has evolved to make decisions and draw the most plausible conclusions regardless of the quality of the available information. The decision-making process is influenced by heuristics, or cognitive shortcuts, that can have a significant effect on adherence when relevant information is limited. Understanding heuristics can significantly help us to understand patients’ adherence…
Behavioral science indicates that people make decisions, including medication adherence decisions, using two systems of thinking: System 1, which is rapid but intuitive and biased, and System 2, which is rational and reflective but complex. Humans tend to favor System 1 thinking. Understanding the human decision-making process allows for a better understanding of menopausal women.…
When symptomatic, menopause can have a profound impact on multiple aspects of a woman’s life, including work3, family life, and sex life4, among others. Adherence to treatments for menopausal syndrome and other diseases during the peri- and post-menopausal period is crucial to women’s health outcomes.11-14 Menopause syndrome can impact quality of life All women experience…
Approximately 1.2 billion women worldwide will be menopausal by 2030.2 A woman’s experience with menopause is complex; it is shaped by various biological, cultural, ethical, social, psychological, situational, and behavioral factors.6 Physicians must consider these aspects during their interactions with menopausal patients to improve women’s health outcomes and quality of life. Effective peri- and postmenopausal…
Nudging is a powerful tool in helping people make the right decisions without forcing them to do so. It has been widely used by public authorities to help the general public adopt behaviors beneficial to them, that otherwise they would tend not to adopt. In his groundbreaking book “Nudge”, Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler gives…
Pandemics are not new to the humankind, and the coronavirus is just the latest (and most probably not the last) of them. A considerable number of the pandemics were dealt with medically, through vaccination.1,2 This was the case for polio, smallpox, rubella, to name but few. These diseases had been killing great numbers of people…