OBJECTIVES

Phollow is a real-world evidence generator based on a cohort of users of community pharmacies. This cohort allows the study and characterization of patients undergoing treatment with certain drugs of interest.

The primary objective was to measure therapeutic adherence and to study its determinants in in a real-world setting of patients taking oral anticoagulants (OACs) at 1 year.

METHODS

This is a retrospective, multicenter, cohort study of adult patients taking OACs identified in Portuguese community pharmacies. Patients were recruited to Phollow at the community pharmacies from 24^th May to 7^th June 2021, and medication data from patients was retrieved through the dispense software of community pharmacies. The Phollow database contains the data on all prescribed and dispensed medicines at the community pharmacies since the last 3 years prior the recruitment date. Additionally, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were collected through a telephone-based questionnaire applied to patients after recruitment.

Adherence was defined as the proportion of days covered (PDC) and was calculated at 1– and 2-years.

Logistic regression was run to assess variables associated with higher adherence (PDC of ≥ 0.8) at 1-year.

RESULTS

Up to June 2021, we were able to analyse adherence data for 50 patients. The median age was 72 years (IQR, 65.0-77.0) and 66.0% were male. Overall, the mean adherence rate at 1-year was 68.6% and at 2-year was 77.1%. About 40.0% and 59.4% of patients were adherent after 1- and 2-year of treatments, respectively. No significant adherence predictors were found in the study.

CONCLUSIONS

Suboptimal adherence to OACs was common, however, mean adherence rate increased after 2 years compared to the first one. In this preliminary analysis, the limited sample size decreased the model accuracy.