My Healthy Heart Blogs
A Special, Potentially Life-saving Delivery
03/11/08
Information for Caregivers
Heart attack patients who were prescribed beta-blockers were more likely to take their medication if they received mail reminding them of the importance of their treatment, according to a new study.
More than 13 million Americans suffer from coronary heart disease and more than 7 million have had a heart attack. Beta blockers are an effective way to treat heart disease, prevent serious cardiac events, and prolong life. In fact, experts estimate that heart attack patients who do not take beta-blockers as prescribed are almost twice as likely to die within a year of the heart attack.
In an effort to find a low-cost, yet effective way to boost the rates of patients who stick with their medications, researchers sent two separate mailings two months apart to post-heart attack patients who were on beta-blockers.
A personalized letter was mailed first. Two months later a similar letter was sent with an accompanying brochure. Both mailings included a wallet card that suggested questions for the patient to ask their clinician, space to list their medications, and space to record additional queries. The communications stressed the importance of lifetime use of β-blockers after heart attack, and that adverse effects can be managed and the importance of remembering to refill their prescription. They also included a brief mention of other therapies (statins, ACEIs, and aspirin).
The mailings were highly effective. Among the patients who received the written reminders, there was an overall 4.3 percent increase of compliance with prescribed treatment. That means, those patients took their medications an average of 1.3 extra days a month when compared to the group that was not reminded.
Patients who received the reminders were also 17 percent more likely to take their medications 80 percent of the days in a month. That translates into one additional patient adhering to treatment for every 16 patients receiving intervention.
The results were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The authors concluded that mailing reminders to patients recovering from heart attacks is an effective and easy-to-replicate way to increase the number of patients who consistently take beta-blockers.
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