# Validity of Online Patient Medication Reviews and Ratings (PMRRs) for Treatment Satisfaction with Medication Therapy Among Older Adults with Antihypertensive Medications

## TL;DR

This study shows that online medication reviews from older adults correlate moderately with traditional satisfaction measures, suggesting they can help capture real-world patient experiences.

## Contribution

Demonstrates the validity of online medication reviews as a proxy for treatment satisfaction in older adults taking antihypertensive drugs.

## Key findings

- Online review scores correlated significantly with traditional satisfaction measures across multiple domains.
- Factors like region, hypertension stage, and income influenced patient satisfaction.
- Online reviews showed potential as complementary tools for clinical decision-making.

## Abstract

Background/objective: Online platforms for sharing prescription drug experiences are becoming increasingly available, yet their validity as measures of patient satisfaction remains unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the potential of an online drug review system, WePharm, as a proxy for treatment satisfaction among older adults taking antihypertensive medications. Methods: A cross-sectional survey using a convenience sample was conducted from February to July 2018 among patients aged 50–80 years recruited from four senior welfare centers and one community pharmacy in Seoul. Participants completed both an online review via WePharm and a paper-based Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (TSQM). Satisfaction attributes included drug efficacy, side effects, convenience, affordability, and willingness to recommend. Pearson correlation coefficients and ANOVA were used to examine concordance and associated factors. Results: A total of 313 participants were included. Online review scores were significantly correlated with TSQM scores across all domains as follows: effectiveness (r = 0.451), side effects (r = 0.363), convenience (r = 0.285), and overall satisfaction (r = 0.256), all p < 0.0001. Key factors associated with satisfaction included region, stage of hypertension, income, duration of antihypertensive use, and comorbidity count. Conclusions: Online patient medication reviews, as implemented in WePharm, demonstrated moderate correlation with validated treatment satisfaction measures. These findings support the potential utility of online drug review systems as complementary tools for capturing real-world patient experience and informing shared decision-making in clinical practice, and as these findings were from a convenience sample, further research is expected with the aim of improving generalizability.