Getting patients suffering from chronic diseases to stick with medications remains a challenge for providers. Research shows that it has much to do with a patients’ individual characteristics—and new research published sheds more light on the subject.

The study specifically examined the link between non-adherence to medications for chronic diseases and non-adherence to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease medications.

The study, published in the academic journal International Journal of COPD, was a joint initiative done by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, a company based out of Ridgefield, Connecticut, and Humana, the Louisville, Kentucky-based health company, according to a statement from the two companies.

Because there’s no cure for COPD, healthcare providers often prescribe daily medications to help treat symptoms of the disease, which include frequent coughing, breathlessness and wheezing.

"Because people living with COPD are frequently diagnosed with another chronic disease, such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes, we designed this new study to explore the relationship between adherence to daily medicines for these other diseases and adherence to daily maintenance medicines for COPD," said Phil Schwab, co-author on the study and a researcher at Humana.

The authors wanted to investigate what kind of factors contributed to poor medication adherence. They speculated that lack of coordinated healthcare in addition to behavioral and socioeconomic factors could be possible reasons.

"The study results showed patients who are likely to be non-adherent to other medicines are also likely to be non-adherent to their COPD medicines,” Schwab said.

The results could help inform and guide physicians on how to best support patients taking COPD medications, said Andrew Renda, MD, the bold goal director for Humana.

"Rather than focus on the number and type of comorbidities with COPD, holistic adherence improvement efforts should address access, affordability, and most importantly, education on how these medications improve symptoms and quality of life while reducing the risk of exacerbations,” he said.