Therapeutic coverage

The therapeutic coverage is the percentage of time during which the patient had a therapeutically adequate effect of medication in the observation period, based on the interplay between the drug s measured duration of therapeutically effective action, after a last-taken dose and the patient s dosing history (Urquhart, 2000). 

For the patient, knowledge of therapeutic coverage heightens the understanding of the impact of a particular level of compliance. For the doctor and the pharmacist, instruction of the patient is facilitated and the possibility is provided to praise patients with good compliance and to increase motivation in patients with poor compliance. 

The daily intake of the medication is not at a regular, set time but with large temporal deviations or completely unstructured. This type of noncom-pliance may fail to ensure adequate therapeutic coverage, depending on the product s forgiveness. 

Several indices are used to quantify compliance. These range from fraction of doses taken in the monitoring period (i.e., a pill count) to the fraction of days during which the patient adhered to the prescribed dosing. Dose timing has been measured as the fraction of doses taken at the prescribed dosing intervals. Other indices of compliance measurement are therapeutic coverage and time at risk. ... 

J.-M. R. Detry, P. Block, G. De Backer, J.-P. Degaute, and R. Six, Patient compliance and therapeutic coverage amlodipine versus nifedipine (slow-release) in the treatment of angina pectoris. J Int Med Res 22 278-286 (1994). 

Meredith PA, Elliott HL (1994) Therapeutic coverage reducing the risks of partial compliance. Br J Clin Pract 73(suppl) 13-17. 

Urquhart J (1991) Therapeutic coverage a parameter for analyzing the pharmacodynamic impact of partial patient compliance. Program and Abstracts, Society for Clinical Trials/ International Society for Clinical Biostatistics, Joint Meeting, Brussels p 12. 

Australia (1998) Coverage six therapeutic groups, especially coronary diseases and ulcers (pharmacological equivalence) RP the lowest in each group Reviewal every four months... 

British Columbia (1995) Coverage products with different active ingredients within the same therapeutic group RP generally the lowest in each group Reviewal ad hoc... 

New Zealand (1993) Coverage products in the same subgroup, defined as products with identical or similar therapeutic effects... 

More recently, 1C has become much popular not only for clinical studies, but also for daily medical practice, and patients are now much more accustomed to give their consent. Clinical studies become more visible to general public and the media reports studies with potential therapeutic benefit in a favourable manner. This is a significant change from the past when most media coverage of clinical studies were... 

Data on production, international trade and uses are obtained for representative regions, which usually include Europe, Japan and the United States of America. It should not, however, be inferred that those areas or nations are necessarily the sole or major sources or users of the agent. Some identified uses may not be current or major applications, and the coverage is not necessarily comprehensive. In the case of drugs, mention of their therapeutic uses does not necessarily represent current practice, nor does it imply judgement as to their therapeutic efficacy. 

Prepackaged topical antibacterial preparations that contain multiple antibiotics are available in fixed dosages well above the therapeutic threshold. These formulations offer the advantages of efficacy in mixed infections, broader coverage for infections due to undetermined pathogens, and delayed microbial resistance to any single component antibiotic. 

Roth, G. A., Fihn, S. D., Mokdad, A. H., Aekplakorn, W., Hasegawa, T., and Lim, S. S. (2011). High total serum cholesterol, medication coverage and therapeutic control An analysis of national health examination survey data from eight countries. Bull. World Health Organ. 89, 92-101. 

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