Pharmaceutical Nonadherence Does Not Exist
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- February 20th, 2012
Medication Adherence and the Problem of Double Negatives
When you are putting together an adherence plan of action for your brand you must contend with messaging, audience segmentation, media spends and the all important R.O.I. But did you know one of the biggest hurdles is the term “nonadherence”? It hides an assumption that “taking your medication as prescribed” is a war between two enemies: adherence and nonadherence. Nothing could be further from the truth. A quick story illustrates the point well.
Quick Story to Illustrate the Point
A philosophy professor is holding a class discussion on the nature of good and evil. “Does evil exists?” Everyone agrees it does offering examples like murder, genocide and willful neglect. As the instructor moves to the blackboard one student stands up and announces “You’re wrong and I can prove it.”
The professor reels around and says “go ahead…” The student says “I’ve got two questions: does cold exist?” “Yes, of course it does. You been here in winter I trust?” The class giggles as the student asks his second question. “And darkness, does darkness exist?” “Yes, darkness exists.”
“I say cold does not exist. Because cold is relative. What makes me cold and a what makes a polar bear cold are two different experiences with one thing in common. Cold is the absence of the right amount of heat for biological well-being. And the same with darkness. Darkness does not exist on its own. It’s the absence of light. You don’t carry a darkness-torch you carry a flashlight. Therefore, Evil does not exist as a separate entity. It’s a measurement of degrees of separation from Good.”
Pharmaceutical Adherence Solutions: A Continuum of Behaviors
Whether the student got an “A” or not is a matter of speculation. But this “emperor has no clothes” story instructs us to challenge some deeply held, often unarticulated assumptions about the nature of the problem we’re dealing with: why do some patients take their medications and others not? It is not a battle between two opposing forces — adherence and nonadherence — but a struggle to move patients along a continuum.
When you look at the challenge of creating your own medication adherence program you might want to abandon the notion of nonadherence and start with looking at why adherent patients are compliant with medical orders. This is much more than an exercise in word-smithing, but a real springboard for innovative thinking. Try it in your next planning meeting. And let me know if you get an “A.”