Almost one-third of patients in study did not fill prescriptions

NEW YORK A study published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has found that a third of people prescribed medications don’t get them filled.

The authors of the study wrote that doctors whose prescribed treatments for patients fail should consider that their patients never purchased their medications.

The study examined the 322 people prescribed 390 medications in the Danish National Electronic Pharmacy Register. It showed that 30.7 percent of patients did not get their prescriptions filled four weeks after receiving them.

Older patients, those with short-term ailments and those prescribed pills were more likely to get their prescriptions than younger patients, those with chronic conditions and those who had been prescribed topical medications.