Adherence to treatment has a significant impact on the quality of life of patients and the health care system

support programs to patients is, for years, fundamental tool in countries around the world

-failure causes does not fulfil the essential aim of any treatment: cure.

– it is estimated that 50% of patients fail to properly follow their treatment within a month of start it. This abandonment involves more than 125,000 lives in Europe and more than 125,000 million euros on unnecessary medical expenditures.

Madrid, July of 2011. For years, hospitals and health centres around the world develop custom programs to make patients aware of the role that plays the medication prescribed in their healing and that those who initially decided not to take to change their behaviour and increase their adherence to the same. Thus adherence to treatment has become a definitive tool that manages to significantly improve the quality of life of chronic patients and positively affects the sustainability of health systems.

To analyze the impact of adherence to treatment is both from the point of view of health and quality of life of patients, such as the economic systems of health impact, just hold the Conference in Madrid how attitudes and fundamental beliefs of the people may change their adherence and persistence ” organized by Atlantis Healthcare and taught by Dr. Grant TaylorPsychologist of health, with more than 23 years of experience in the public and private sectors and Director of clinical of Atlantis Healthcare in New Zealand, which has developed projects in fields such as orthopaedics, obstetrics, cardiology, diabetes, obesity, respiratory medicine and transplantation of heart.

It is estimated that the month of the beginning of treatment, approximately 50% of chronic patients no longer follow it correctly, this abandonment is each year more than 125,000 million euros in costs of hospitalization, spending that would not occur if patients continue treatment normally. In addition, failure to comply with causes that the patient won’t get the best results in its health and feel that it has very little control over their disease.

Programmes of support to the patient are intended to achieve changes in behaviour of groups of people with chronic diseases or risk factors. The objective is to change beliefs towards disease, medication, or the individual relationship with them, avoiding the deterioration or the appearance of crisis patients and unnecessary public spending.

For Dr. Taylor non-adherence is a behavior with a significant impact on the results of the treatment and quality of life of the patient. Using the knowledge and skills in psychology of health behavior change techniques, can influence that behavior to improve the health of the patient and ensure welfare ”.

New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom and Australia have been pioneers in the practical and theoretical development to understand the factors that determine the adherence to treatments. In Spain, the pharmaceutical industry is beginning to implement programmes of support to the patient and several universities have research centres in this discipline.

The psychology of the salud:

Towards the end of the 1970s psychologists began to work systematically in areas of physical health, although they were initially limited to move to this area the psychological principles used in clinical psychology or mental health. Soon developed studies and research focused on people with physical health problems and Health Psychology, also known as medicine behavioural, acquired its own space as a branch of professional psychology. Experts currently theoretical foundations strong and multiple research on behaviour-related health to improve the status of the patients and their quality of life.

The theory of behavior Planificado (Fishbein and 1975 Ajzen), the model of self-regulation (Leventhal, 1987), the health belief model (Hochbaum, 1958) or the theories of behavior on the accession of the teachers Weinman and Petrie, constitute the theoretical foundations of this discipline.

About Atlantis Healtcare

Atlantis Healthcare was founded in 1993 in New Zealand and has now offices in Germany, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Spain. It is a global leader in the development and implementation of support programmes for patients with acute and chronic diseases. More than 70 programs around the world help patients better manage their health, increase their adherence to prescribed treatments and make the necessary adjustments in their day to day for a better quality of life.