Following the news that the ABC taxonomy of medication adherence was translated into French and German see here ,the ABC taxonomy will now be translated in other languages. The translation and validation of the ABC taxonomy in Italian has just begun. Additional translations are planned into Portuguese and Estonian. Validation of these translations is ongoing.

 

The ABC model was proposed by Vrijens et al. link The main aim of the ABC taxonomy is to describe adherence as a longitudinal process over time. Three consecutive phases can be discerned: initiation (or starting a new medication), implementation (or developing a routine), and persistence (or continued taking of medications for a prolonged period of time). In doing so, the ABC taxonomy resolves the well-known problem of comparing apples with oranges. Far too often, a mere overall percentage of how many times a patient took their medication is adopted as an adherence index. But persisting is dissimilar from developing a routine and the first also requires a different statistical model (i.e, survival analysis rather than logistic regression analysis).

 

This is also why the recently published EMERGE guidelines are important click here . These provide an important tool to help researchers better report findings about medication adherence.  If you are interested in supporting this effort, please contact Jenny Demonceau (jenny.demonceau@aardexgroup.com). Join us in Tallinn at our annual meeting in November click here