# Medicine Non-Adherence: A New Viewpoint on Adherence Arising from Research Focused on Sub-Saharan Africa

## TL;DR

This paper explores why people don't take their medicine as prescribed, finding that reasons for non-adherence are similar across different countries and proposing a new way to understand adherence.

## Contribution

The study introduces a new perspective on adherence by identifying previously undocumented reasons for non-adherence through interviews in multiple countries.

## Key findings

- Reasons for non-adherence are consistent across both developing and developed countries.
- New or undocumented reasons for non-adherence were discovered through interviews.
- Adherence is proposed as a single act, allowing focus on enablers and inhibitors at any given time.

## Abstract

Adherence is vital for medicine to have an effect, yet adherence is considered to be low, with approximately half of the patients not fully adherent. However, research into adherence tends to focus on quantitative analysis of performance, which fails to perceive how people are adherent in their many different environments. As a contribution to gaining a deeper understanding, interviews were held with thirty individuals in the UK, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and six countries in sub-Saharan Africa to understand their perceptions on adherence to a range of drugs, and these were compared with an existing well-regarded list. New or undocumented reasons for non-adherence were discovered. Reasons for non-adherence were consistent across both developing and developed worlds. A new viewpoint on adherence is suggested, which considers adherence to be a single act and therefore as an individual opportunity to be adherent, permitting greater focus on the enablers and inhibitors of adherence at any given point in time.