THU0763-HPR Addressing the elephant in the room: a possible new and effective way to increase patient adherence to medical advice

Background Lack of Patient adherence to medical advice (PAMA) are recognized as an era of interest for the last decades 1. There have been several initiatives to improve PAMA such as patient centred care, shared decision-making, introduction of e-health and m-health. Although they are proven better than usual care, neither of these initiatives is proven successful. Outcome of medical interventions depends on complex psychological and sociocultural factors of which many are uncontrolled by health professionals. Objectives In the present study we assess beliefs about priorities in public health care, and adherence to medical advice to establish a novel approach to increase PAMA. Methods The Norwegian Citizen Panel (NCP) 2 is an experimental survey. Respondents are randomized to answer similar questions with slightly different wording. NCP is currently about 5000 respondents based on random selection performed by the Norwegian people register. The present study is based on responses to two question experiments from NCP adressing beliefs about priorities in public health care, and adherence to medical advice. The question on priorities in health care is divided in six groups (two control group, four experimental). The question on adherence is divided in three groups (one control group, two experimental). All questions are answered with a seven point Likert scale. Conclusions This study is the first to use experimental survey to assess PAMA. The result indicates that healthcare priorities form a base of trust between health care providers and patients. It further indicates that PAMA might increase if the healthcare provider refers to national expertise and patient organisations beliefs of a given treatment. This finding is supported by psychological theories of meaning-making3. Informing the patient about the views of the patient organisations and national expertise in the reasoning for a given treatment, may improve patient adherence to medical advices. References Costa E, Giardini A, Savin M, et al. Interventional tools to improve medication adherence: review of literature. Patient preference and adherence 2015;9:1303–14. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/PPA.S87551 [published Online First: 14.9.2015]. Ivarsflaten E. Norwegian citizen panel Wave 2, 2014. First NSD edition, Bergen 2014 ed. University of bergen, 2014. Lewis J. From culturalism to transculturalism. Iowa journal of cultural studies 2002;1:14–32. Acknowledgements Siv Morkved for the suport and encouragement to do the study. Disclosure of Interest None declared