Teamwork Key in Managing Medication
Social Workers' Role Vital in Promoting Adherence
Not adhering to prescription regimens has been called "the
nation's other drug problem."
By Peter Slavin, Special to NASW News
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| Illustration: John Michael
Yanson |
Today, it's hard to overstate the importance of following instructions
about medicines in a society where taking pills is a daily event
for millions.
In this culture, "medication is the main way medicine is
practiced," observes Maura Conry, a clinical social worker
and clinical pharmacist who is psychiatric clinical coordinator
at Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. But many
people seem to have an innate reluctance to take drugs of any
kind, and how to get individuals to take their medicines regularly
and safely has long perplexed clinicians.
Social workers address problems of adherence at every turn, and
not only those who are employed in health care or mental health
settings. Take the school social worker counseling a child with
diabetes reluctant to take insulin, or the social worker at a
homeless shelter working with a resident with high blood pressure,
or the private practitioner treating a client who is abusing prescription
drugs, or the psychotherapist working with a person living with
AIDS who is having trouble sticking to the painstaking regimen
for antiretroviral drugs.
Conry finds it hard to think of a social work venue free of adherence
issues, whether the drugs be psychotropic or antibiotics, prescription
or over the counter.
The scale of the problem is easily illustrated: According to
Kia Bentley, professor and director of the Ph.D. program in social
work at Virginia Commonwealth University, a study found that among
people with high blood pressure, only one-third took their medication
as prescribed, another third took little or no medication, and
a third were intermittently adherent.
High stakes. The stakes could hardly be higher. The powerful
drugs for chronic diseases on the market today can have blessed
effects if taken as directed, says Conry. But if they're not,
they can put people in the hospital or worse. According to NASW's
March 2004 Aging Practice Update "Medication Adherence and
Older Adults," 10 percent of all hospital admissions and
23 percent of nursing home admissions stem from medication nonadherence,
and nonadherence accounts for 125,000 cardiovascular deaths annually.
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From June 2004 NASW News. © 2004 National
Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved. NASW News
articles may be copied for personal use, but proper notice of
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