Current medical research and opinion
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To identify the adherence value cut-off point that optimally stratifies good versus poor compliers using administratively derived adherence measures, the medication possession ratio (MPR) and the proportion of days covered (PDC) using hospitalization episode as the primary outcome among Medicaid eligible persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure (CHF), or hyperlipidemia. ⋯ This study provided an initial empirical basis for selecting 0.80 as a reasonable cut-off point that stratifies adherent and non-adherent patients based on predicting subsequent hospitalization across several highly prevalent chronic diseases. This cut-off point has been widely used in previous research and our findings suggest that it may be valid in these conditions; it is based on a single outcome measure, and additional research using these methods to identify adherence thresholds using other outcome metrics such as laboratory or physiologic measures, which may be more strongly related to adherence, is warranted.