Philip Morisky, CEO of MMAR, provides an overview of using the MMAS-4 as a screening tool to assess medication non-adherence as part of standard care for a group of pharmacists and students at AUHS.

The MMAS-4 is a highly validated scale that can quickly assess a patient’s medication taking behavior. For patients found to be non-adherent the MMAS-8 scale is not only used for measuring the magnitude of non-adherence but also provides a diagnostic assessment as to why the patient is non-adherent so health care providers can tailor educational counseling sessions and motivational interviewing questions to improve their medication taking behavior.

Donald E. Morisky's research while affiliated with County of Los Angeles Public Health and other places


https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Donald-E-Morisky-2141976607


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Professor Donald Morisky in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, received the Distinguished Career Award from the Public Health Education and Health Promotion section of the American Public Health Association. The award is given for outstanding contribution to the practice and profession of health education, health promotion and/or health communications.

Morisky directs the School of Public Health's doctoral training program in the social and behavioral determinants of HIV/AIDS, and served as vice-chair of his department from 1994-2003 and chair from 2004-2005. He teaches core courses in program planning, survey research methods and evaluation. He also teaches courses on research methodology and courses on the social and behavioral determinants of HIV/AIDS prevention from a global perspective.
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Morisky's research is directed to both chronic and infectious diseases, specifically the risk factors for cardiovascular disease (high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking and elevated cholesterol), tuberculosis control and HIV/AIDS prevention. He has conducted research in the Philippines for over 30 years, and he is currently a co-investigator on an NIA research grant addressing medication-taking behavior among the elderly, in collaboration with the Oschner Clinic at Tulane University.

When using eDOT the major concern for the clinical trial is the lost opportunity of building rapport with the patient to determine if they are “intentionally” or “unintentionally” non-adherent. Some patients thrive on personal contact and the opportunity for tailored counseling.

​Intentional medication non-adherence is an active decision from the patient to take their medication as prescribed. This is a process in which a patient makes a rational decision based on the benefits of medication adherence compared to risks of medication non-adherence.

​Unintentional medication non-adherence is a passive process in which the patient does not adhere to how the medication is prescribed because they forget, don’t understand, or because of poor health literacy.

Most clinical trials use the Morisky Method as validated measures of medication adherence due to the affordability of administering the scale. Most clinical trials do not have the budget or resources for Directly observed therapy (DOT) to ensure patients take their medication as prescribed and complete their treatment. DOT involves observing drug administration in which a health care professional watches as a person takes each dose of a medication.

The MMAS-8 has undergone numerous levels of validation and has the closest type of validation which mimics the "gold standard", criterion-related validity. The self-reported MMAS-8 agreed with physiological outcome measures such as BP control, HgA1c levels, GFR rates, HDL/LDL ratios, viral load levels, topical skin disorders, etc.

Question #8 is related to polypharmacy and asks specifically, "how often do you have difficulty remembering to take all of your medications?" This is to identify problems remembering or forgetting as a whole, not just on a specific treatment plan. This has been validated with an Internal Consistency
Cronbach's alpha .83, Sensitivity 93%, and Specificity 57%. For example, a patient might remember to take all of their oral anticoagulation medications, but if they have high blood pressure as well. There is no medication that substantially does both.

A HUGE ADVANTAGE for using the Morisky Scales is the ability to tailor the health condition and medication(s) with MAPI validated translations.