{"doi":"10.2147/ppa.s399693","title":"Patient Pill Organization Strategies and Adherence Measured in a Cross-Sectional Study of Hypertension","abstract":"Background: The strategies patients use to organize medications (eg, pill dispenser) may be reflected in adherence measured at follow-up. We studied whether medication organization strategies patients use at home are associated with adherence measured using pharmacy-fills, self-report, and pill counts. Design: Secondary analysis of data from a prospective randomized clinical trial. Setting: Eleven US safety-net and community primary care clinics. Patients: Of the 960 enrolled self-identified non-Hispanic Black and White patients prescribed antihypertensive medications, 731 patients reported pill organization strategies and were included. Variable: Patients were asked if they use any of the following medication organization strategies: finish previous refills first; use a pill dispenser; combine same prescriptions; or combine dissimilar prescriptions. Outcomes: Adherence to antihypertensive medications using pill counts (range, 0.0-1.0% of the days covered), pharmacy-fill (proportion of days covered >90%), and self-report (adherent/non-adherent). Results: Of the 731 participants, 38.3% were men, 51.7% were age ≥65, 52.9% self-identified as Black or African American. Of the strategies studied, 51.7% finished previous refills first, 46.5% used a pill dispenser, 38.2% combined same prescriptions and 6.0% combined dissimilar prescriptions. Median (IQR) pill count adherence was 0.65 (0.40-0.87), pharmacy-fill adherence was 75.7%, and self-reported adherence was 63.2%. Those who combined same prescriptions had significantly lower measured pill count adherence than those who did not (0.56 (0.26-0.82) vs 0.70 (0.46-0.90), p<0.01) with no significant difference in pharmacy-fill (78.1% vs 74%, p=0.22) or self-reported adherence (63.0% vs 63.3%, p=0.93). Conclusion: Self-reported medication organization strategies were common. Combining same prescriptions was associated with lower adherence as measured using pill counts but not pharmacy-fills or self-report. Clinicians and researchers should identify the pill organization strategies used by their patients to understand how these strategies may influence measures of patient adherence. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03028597; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03028597 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/72vcZMzAB).","journal":"Patient Preference and Adherence","year":2023,"id":374468,"datarank":0.3342119713122213,"base_score":1.6094379124341003,"endowment":1.6094379124341003,"self_citation_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citation_network_contribution":0.09279628444710623,"self_endowment_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citer_contribution":0.09279628444710623,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":4,"citers_with_citation_signal":3,"citers_with_endowment":3,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9306,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT03028597"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":243955,"name":"Laura Helmkamp","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":450752,"name":"John F. Steiner","orcid":"0000-0002-6514-6057","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":732411,"name":"Julie Maertens","orcid":"0000-0001-9876-2166","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":898584,"name":"Rebecca Hanratty","orcid":"0000-0002-1721-5919","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":599852,"name":"Suma Vupputuri","orcid":"0000-0001-6848-2649","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":523893,"name":"Edward P. Havranek","orcid":"0000-0001-9292-0282","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":395319,"name":"L. Miriam Dickinson","orcid":"0000-0001-8302-809X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":928929,"name":"Irene V. Blair","orcid":"0000-0002-4360-3093","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":371463,"name":"Stacie L. Daugherty","orcid":"0000-0001-8969-566X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1136016,"name":"Matthew P Genelin","orcid":"0000-0003-3537-1517","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":28,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:16:11.341687Z","pmid":"36992865","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}