Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of questions indicating medication adherence in the ARIC Visit-5 exam survey (n=6,261)

Measures
MGLS		Mean (SD)/Percent
1.	Ever forget to take medicines	33.25%
2.	Ever careless about taking medicines	9.94%
3.	Stop taking medicines when feeling better	4.89%
4.	Stop taking medicines if you feel worse	4.86%
Frequency of non-adherence in past 4 weeks		Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often
5.	Frequency of stretching medicines in the past 4 weeks	94.30%	3.31%	1.90%	0.49%
6.	Frequency of running out of medicines in the past 4 weeks	90.09%	7.45%	2.28%	0.18%
7.	Frequency of missed taking of medicines in the past 4 weeks	63.35%	29.02%	6.67%	0. 96%
Direct measure of the extent of adherence
8.	Percent of the time you have taken your medications in the past 4 weeks	96.8 (9.5)
Self-reported reasons for medication non-adherence (n=2116)
9.	Medication not taken on time because could not afford	1.47%
10.	Medication not taken on time because lack of transportation	0.28%
11.	Medication not taken on time because poor memory*	72.83%
12.	Medication not taken on time because ran out of it*	7.37%
13.	Medication not taken on time because confusing directions	0.33%
14.	Medication not taken on time because felt better*	2.88%
15.	Medication not taken on time because felt worse*	1.32%
16.	Medication not taken on time because too complicated	0.33%
17.	Medication not taken on time because scared of side effects	1.75%
18.	Medication not taken on time because no belief in effectiveness	1.37%
19.	Medication not taken on time because other reason	19.38%

MGLS: Morisky Green Levine Medication Adherence Scale.

^*Four sets of items found to be redundant based on both wording and factor analysis results: Items 11 and 1, 12 and 6, 14 and 3, and 15 and 4.