Medicines compliance and reimbursement level in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Portela, Maria da Conceição Constantino
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Fernandes, Adalberto Campos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/34863
• topic: Access to care; Community health centers; Efficiency; Health economics; Primary care

During a severe financial crisis, it is a priority to use scientific evidence to identify factors that enable therapeutic compliance by patients. This study aimed to evaluate a possible association between the number of patients who attended a medical appointment and had medicine prescribed and the number of these same patients who purchased the prescribed medicine and whether the level of reimbursement was a deciding factor. We perform a correlation analysis at primary care centers in Portugal, between 2010 and 2012 (n = 96). We found a moderate to high positive association, which is statistical significant, between the number of the patients with medicines dispensing and medicines reimbursement levels. The correlation coefficient varies from.5 to.63 (P <.01). The compliance increases along with the increase in the reimbursement levels.