We excluded oral chemotherapy because we could not validate medication dispensing dates.
The computerised medication-dispensing histories contain data regarding dispensed medications, type of prescriber, dispensing date, dispensed amount of medication, prescribed dosage and length of prescription.
One of the most widely cited pharmacy-based measures of medication adherence is calculated simply as the total number of days of medication dispensed between some initial and final dispensing date divided by the length of time between these dates.
The medication assessment period started on the earliest prescription dispensing date after the index breast cancer diagnosis and ended at one of the study endpoints (date of subsequent breast cancer diagnosis, death, health plan membership termination, or study's end).
The monthly rates of antibiotic and asthma medication dispensing were plotted by age at asthma index date in those followed for 6 months prior to and also for 6 months post the asthma index date (n = 17,297).
Further, the electronic medical record does not reflect medication dispensing (as claims data does) or any aspect of patient adherence, so we had to assume that if a medication was active and there was not stop date then the patient was likely still on the medication.
The participants were asked if they started taking pills from the containers on hand on the dispensing date, or if not, when they did start taking the medication from the container.
For each occurrence of glyceryl trinitrate dispensing in the study we received information on medication name, number of defined daily doses (DDDs), Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) code [ 18], dispensing date, encrypted personal identification number, sex, birth year, and residential postal code of the patient.
One system that meets these requirements is PillPack, a service that simplifies medication dispensing.
CONCLUSIONS: Rates of medication dispensing error were low and balanced between treatment groups.
RESULTS: The rate of medication dispensing error resulting in treatment error was 0.04%.
