Abstract
Background
Understanding how patient–physician communication affects patients’ medication experience would help hypertensive patients maintain their regular long-term medication therapy. This study aimed to examine whether patient–physician communication (information and interpersonal treatment) affects patients’ medication experience directly or indirectly through changing medication adherence for each of the two communication domains.
Methods
A self-administered cross-sectional survey was conducted for older patients who had visited a community senior center as a member. Two communication domains were assessed using two subscales of the Primary Care Assessment Survey. Medication adherence and experience were measured using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale and a five-point Likert scale, respectively. Mediatory effects were assessed via Baron and Kenny’s procedure and a Sobel test.
Results
Patient–physician communication had a positive prediction on patients’ medication experience (β=0.25, P=0.03), and this was fully mediated by medication adherence (z=3.62, P<0.001). Of the two components of patient–physician communication, only informative communication showed a mediatory effect (z=2.21, P=0.03).
Conclusion
Patient–physician communication, specifically informative communication, had the potential to improve patients’ medication experience via changes in medication adherence. This finding can inform health care stakeholders of the mediatory role of medication adherence in ensuring favorable medication experience for older hypertensive patients by fostering informative patient–physician communication.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr Sunghee Tak for her valuable insights on patients’ medication experience and Dr Yazed Alruthia for assisting in survey administration. This work was supported by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and the Seoul National University Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Disclosure
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.