Identify and discuss some things that cause barriers for patients to adhere to health care.

A. Patients may have financial difficulties in keeping doctor appointments, filling
prescriptions, etc.
B. Patients may encounter practical obstacles in fulfilling these tasks as well.
C. Patients may find prescribed regimens not effective enough, too costly, too time-consuming, too hard to follow, too inconvenient; or they may simply forget to comply.
D. Patients may treat physician instructions as advice rather than orders and follow these only selectively.
E. Patients may stop taking medications or following other directions when their symptoms go away.
F. Other patients stop taking medication because they feel worse, or do not feel better.
G. Some patients "squirrel away" some of their pills to save for the next illness.
H. Some patients have an optimistic bias, believing they will not suffer the usual consequences of not adhering to medical treatment.
I. Older and visually impaired patients can have difficulty reading prescription labels, and even more than half of college students cannot understand them.
J. Adherence today requires difficult lifestyle choices.
1. Adherence was simpler when infectious diseases caused the most deaths and were treated by short-term medication, rest, etc.
2. Today, chronic diseases are the leading causes of death and are affected by diet, physical activity, and substance use.
3. Instead of just taking prescribed medications and following short-term advice, patients today must often make major changes like quitting smoking, eating differently, starting to exercise, etc., and maintaining these behaviors long-term