On top of being able to access more medical treatments, people with severe chronic illnesses are also more likely to take prescribed medication, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“The medications we take are important for managing symptoms and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but they’re also important for maintaining a good quality of life,” said senior author Liza Lohr, an associate professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland, College Park.
“If you can’t control your symptoms, you can have chronic health problems,” she said.
“And if you can control your quality of your life, you’ll be healthier.”
The study looked at the use of prescription medications in adults who had severe chronic illness.
People with chronic illnesses, such as asthma, chronic heart failure and multiple sclerosis, are more likely than those without the illness to use prescription medications for some of the same reasons.
According to the study, people who took the medications for a chronic condition were more likely at least in part to take them for the same purposes, and more likely if they didn’t have a medical condition.
The study, which was led by Dr. Steven B. Davis of the University at Buffalo, looked at data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2013 to 2016, as well as data from a survey of nearly 3,000 adults who were between the ages of 25 and 44 who were participating in the study.
“Our study found that people who had a chronic illness were more than twice as likely to report using prescription medications, even after controlling for their health status,” Dr. Davis said.
In addition, people over the age of 50 who had been diagnosed with a chronic health condition were also more than five times as likely as people under 50 to use the medications.
More than half of the people in the participants’ sample reported taking a prescription medication for a medical reason.
And about three-quarters of those who used prescription medication were using the medications regularly.
The study’s authors believe the data may be useful in understanding how prescription medication is used in the United States.
A number of other studies have shown that people with chronic conditions are more prone to prescription drug use than people without chronic illnesses.
In a 2014 study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 8,000 people who were prescribed a number of prescription drugs for a wide range of conditions, including asthma, hypertension, arthritis, diabetes and cancer.
They found that about 30% of the participants used prescription medications frequently, compared to 25% of people without a medical diagnosis.
The same study also found that among people who used medication regularly, people were more inclined to have the conditions treated, and less likely to have a health problem treated.
The researchers say this is likely because people who use prescription medication tend to use it to treat symptoms, which helps keep their condition in check.
But because these medications can cause side effects and side effects can cause complications, they also tend to be less helpful in managing the symptoms, the study authors write.
“It’s a bit of a paradox because, as a result of their chronic condition, people are less likely than people who don’t have the condition to be able to control their symptoms, but when they’re on medication, they’re able to manage their symptoms,” Dr Lohl said.
“People with chronic health conditions are also significantly more likely in our study to use prescribed medications than people with no chronic condition,” she added.
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