ArticleJournal of general internal medicine1993
The effect of prescription size on acquisition of maintenance medications.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 1993. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of issuing longer- versus shorter-duration prescriptions: a systematic review.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2018Pooled it
- Review of Blood Pressure Control in Vulnerable Older Adults: The Role of Frailty and Sarcopenia.Journal of vascular diseases · 2025Article
- Article
- Patients' Experiences with Refilling their HIV Medicines: Facilitators and Barriers to On-Time Refills.The Permanente journal · 2020Article
- Length of Initial Prescription at Hospital Discharge and Long-Term Medication Adherence for Elderly, Post-Myocardial Infarction Patients: Protocol for an Interrupted Time Series Study.JMIR research protocols · 2020Article
- Article
- Health care system-level factors associated with performance on Medicare STAR adherence metrics in a large, integrated delivery system.Medical care · 2015Article
- Hypertension treatment intensification among stroke survivors with uncontrolled blood pressure.Stroke · 2015Article
- Influence of refill adherence method when comparing level of adherence for different dosing regimens.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2014Article
- Adherence to chronic disease medications among New York City Medicaid participants.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2013Article
- Patient centered primary care is associated with patient hypertension medication adherence.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2011Article
- Association between prescription co-payment amount and compliance with adjuvant hormonal therapy in women with early-stage breast cancer.Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2011Article
- Early discontinuation and nonadherence to adjuvant hormonal therapy in a cohort of 8,769 early-stage breast cancer patients.Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2010Article
- Refill adherence to oral hypoglycemic agents and glycemic control in veterans.The Annals of pharmacotherapy · 2010Article
- Measuring Persistence to Oral Hypoglycemic Agents in Type 2 Diabetic Veterans.The Journal of pharmacy technology : jPT : official publication of the Association of Pharmacy Technicians · 2009Article
- Impact of prescription size on statin adherence and cholesterol levels.BMC health services research · 2007Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo determine whether large prescriptions (> or = 90 days' supplies) enhance the acquisition of maintenance medications by patients.
designStudy 1: multisite, retrospective cohort study evaluating outpatient digoxin use. Study 2: single-site, retrospective cohort study to confirm Study 1.
settingStudy 1: Ten Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in the Rocky Mountain region. Study 2: The only facility from Study 1 (site C) that dispensed large prescriptions of maintenance medications. PATIENTS: Randomly selected outpatients receiving two or more digoxin prescriptions (n = 176 in Study 1, n = 114 in Study 2).
interventionNone.
resultsThe main outcome measure was the proportion of prescribed doses of maintenance medications obtained. In Study 1, patients who received at least one large digoxin prescription obtained a mean of 137.2% of their prescribed digoxin doses over a mean of nine months, compared with 91.3% for patients who received only small prescriptions of < 90 days' supplies (p = 0.02). Patients receiving large prescriptions were more likely to obtain at least 100% of their prescribed amounts of digoxin (adjusted OR = 11.4, 95% CI = 1.3-96.8, p = 0.03). At site C, patients in Study 1 obtained a mean of 129.0% of all maintenance drugs given in large supplies, compared with 95.2% of drugs prescribed only in small supplies (p = 0.006). In Study 2, acquisition of digoxin increased progressively from 89.7% among individuals who received only small digoxin prescriptions to 113.0% for those who received only large supplies (p = 0.002), over a mean of 14 months.
conclusionsLarge prescriptions facilitate the acquisition of maintenance medications but may lead to oversupplies, while small prescriptions impose a barrier to obtaining these drugs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.