Seniors Unable To Afford Prescription Drugs, Study Finds
Main Category: Seniors / AgingAlso Included In: Compliance
Article Date: 12 Dec 2007 - 10:00 PDT
| Patient / Public: | ![]() |
5 (5 votes) |
| Health Professional: | ![]() |
3.67 (3 votes) |
| Article Opinions: | 0 posts |
Two-thirds of California seniors cannot afford their medications, and nine in 10 seniors want to be able to choose which medications are prescribed to them, according to a study published in the December issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the Honolulu Advertiser reports. For the study, Chien-Wen Tseng, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Hawaii John Burns School of Medicine and a physician investigator at the Pacific Health Research Institute, and colleagues surveyed 1,100 California residents who were at least 65 years old.
The researchers found that:
- Four of five participants want physicians to ask them if they can afford drugs before the medications are prescribed;
- 25% of participants skipped, stopped or never began taking treatments because of cost;
- 16% of participants said their physician asked if they could afford treatments; and
- Among participants who stopped taking drugs, 17% said that their physician had checked to see if they could afford the treatments.
An abstract of the study is available online.
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
|
Please rate this article: (Hover over the stars then click to rate) |
Patient / Public: |
or |
Health Professional: |
Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms and conditions.
Contact Our News Editors
For any corrections of factual information, or to contact the editors please use our feedback form.
![]()
Please send any medical news or health news press releases to:
| Back to top | Back to front page | List of All Medical Articles |
| Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | © 2009 MediLexicon International Ltd |





