Dr. Corrine Voils, Professor in the Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, provided insight into medicine compliance in a recent New York Times article titled, “Patients hate ‘forever’ drugs. Are Ozempic and Wegovy different?”
This article explores the idea of nonadherence, which is the human tendency to resist medical treatment, and how new obesity drugs may be overcoming this problem. Nonadherence can be common with daily prescriptions, or “forever” drugs, as people feel as though they are getting a daily reminder that they are sick. As a result, they are reluctant to take their prescriptions.
“People think they are doing fine, so they don’t need the medicine,” said Voils, a social psychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who studies medicine compliance. “But the medicine is what is keeping them well.”
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