| Introduction: Adherence to medical recommendations is recognized as an important factor in positive patient outcomes. It has been evaluated to a limited extent in veterinary medicine with reported adherence rates anywhere from 30 to 89%. The objective of this evaluation was to examine adherence to written instructions provided to veterinary dermatology clients as part of a quality assurance assessment of our program. Methods: Cat and dog owners of returning dermatology patients completed a questionnaire to report how well written recommendations on printed discharge notes were followed. Adherence rates were calculated and contributing factors were evaluated. Findings: Adherence was evaluated for 75 patients at 93 different recheck visits to the dermatology service. Where a recheck visit date had been previously recommended, 89% occurred within 1 week of that date. Overall, the average rate of adherence to written instructions was 74%. Adherence rates varied by category of recommendation (p<0.001): diet changes had the highest adherence (100%) while recommendations requiring changes to owner or pet behavior had the lowest (17%). Adherence to medication instructions (the most common category) was 75% overall, but lower for medicated shampoo (62%) and other topicals (58%). Adherence to grooming or cleaning recommendations was 58%. There was some evidence that format of the discharge instructions had an effect on adherence with simplified itemized list having higher adherence than paragraph form (78% versus 71%, p=0.046). Discussion: Overall, adherence varied based on recommendation category and format. Adherence was higher than previously reported in general practice, which could be attributed to the nature of specialty medicine. Authors:
MOSS Anne1, TUREK Michelle2*, MORIELLO Karen3, BUHR Kevin4, HAYIM Rubi5 1School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI USA 2Department of Surgical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI USA 3Department of Medical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI USA 4Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA 5UW Veterinary Care, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI USA |