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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Am Heart J. 2018 Mar 12;200:51–59. doi: 10.1016/j.ahj.2018.03.007

Table 3.

Frequency of non-adherence reasons by medication class.

Medication class

Cardiovascular Pulmonary Diabetes Anti-depression Multiple
N 2,038 133 531 221 685
Intentional non-adherence 1,306 (64.1) 102 (76.7) 346 (65.2) 174 (78.7) 467 (68.2)
 Inconvenient to take 434 (21.3) 44 (33.1) 139 (26.2) 70 (31.7) 183 (26.7)
 Would not do any good-did not take 304 (14.9) 30 (22.6) 77 (14.5) 47 (21.3) 107 (15.6)
 Medication made you feel bad-did not take 550 (27.0) 54 (40.6) 139 (26.2) 86 (38.9) 203 (29.6)
 Cannot carry out normal activities 481 (23.6) 37 (27.8) 127 (23.9) 79 (35.7) 182 (26.6)
 Thought you might become addicted 295 (14.5) 30 (22.6) 73 (13.7) 56 (25.3) 120 (17.5)
 Do not like to take medicine 251 (12.3) 21 (15.8) 38 (7.2) 33 (14.9) 67 (9.8)
 Trying to do without taking medications 681 (33.4) 63 (47.4) 154 (29.0) 107 (48.4) 232 (33.9)
 Other reasons for not taking medications 118 (5.8) 7 (5.3) 28 (5.3) 14 (6.3) 39 (5.7)
Unintentional non-adherence 1,786 (87.6) 118 (88.7) 463 (87.2) 193 (87.3) 597 (87.2)
 In a hurry, too busy, forgot to take 1,509 (74.0) 99 (74.4) 376 (70.8) 154 (69.7) 483 (70.5)
 No money to purchase medication 608 (29.8) 51 (38.3) 194 (36.5) 91 (41.2) 264 (38.5)
 Did not have medication available 756 (37.1) 56 (42.1) 213 (40.1) 91 (41.2) 284 (41.5)
Intentional + Unintentional non-adherence 1,054 (51.7) 87 (65.4) 278 (52.4) 146 (66.1) 379 (55.3)

Participants could be in more than one medication class.