Race and Chronicity of Disease Affecting Medication Adherence in Free Clinic Patients

Free Clinic services are a resource largely utilized by patient populations with limited access to primary care. These populations include the uninsured, poor, minorities, homeless, and non-citizens.¹ Studies have shown that these patients have difficulty with prescription adherence due to multiple *factor-al barriers. Factors such as cost, access, wait time, perception of medication, and relationship with the physician can each affect the adherence to given prescriptions.^2-4 Through literature review, it became evident that there is lack of data focusing exclusively on free clinic patients of race, living arrangements or medical diagnosis.^7-12 To further investigate this issue, last year, a medical student from UCF College of Medicine conducted a survey of the patients at the Longwood Shepherd’s Hope free clinic to determine the principal barriers to medication adherence in this population. Results found cost to be the overwhelming factor related to adherence for these patients. This was followed by time constraints, lifestyle, and concern with side effects of the drugs. While this data gave valuable clues as to how prescription adherence could be improved in the free clinic population, Previous study only included 9 respondents, which slightly abates the significance of the findings. This year continuation of this project was done while factoring in the racial background of patients, chronicity of disease, and its effect on medication adherence. Results of the surveys showed that affordability of drugs to be the primary barrier for patients, and this was true regardless of the race of the patients or the chronicity of the disease.