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Primary medication non-adherence to analgesics and antibiotics at Counties Manukau Health Emergency Department
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For medication to be therapeutically effective, it is essential that patients adhere to them. Filling a prescription is the first critical step to establish medication adherence.[[1,2]] Research on medication adherence has primarily focused on secondary non-adherence, which occurs when patients don’t take their medicines as prescribed, don’t refill their prescriptions on time or stop taking their medicines.[[3]] However, rates of primary medication non-adherence, where a patient fails to have a prescription filled for newly prescribed medicines or a suitable alternative within a specified timeframe, are far less known.[[3,4]] Failing to get newly prescribed medications filled places a burden on patients, families and the broader healthcare system by increasing mortality/morbidity, hospitalisation rates and/or emergency department (ED) visits,