Women are less likely than men to take medication after a stroke, study suggests

Female stroke victims are less likely than men to take drugs that could lower their odds of a second stroke.

Women are 80% more likely to report that they don’t take cholesterol-lowering medications as prescribed, a new study shows.

They’re also 53% more likely to not take blood thinners that could prevent a follow-up stroke, researchers report in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The results appear to be driven by Mexican-American women, researchers said. Mexican-Americans made up 58% of the study population.

“Women in general and Mexican American women in particular are more likely to be caregivers for other family members,” Chen Chen, a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said in a news release.

“As a result, they may be less able to prioritize and manage their own health, which may contribute to a higher likelihood of medication nonadherence,” Chen continued.

As many as half of 187 million patients in the U.S. do not take their medications as prescribed, according to the American Heart Association.

This can dramatically increase a person’s risk of health problems. For example, people with high blood pressure have more than double the risk of a stroke if they don’t take their meds, the AHA said.

For this study, researchers analyzed data from a stroke study conducted in Corpus Christi, TX. The team specifically reviewed the records of more than 1,300 patients who had a first-time stroke between 2008 and 2019

Women who were older, married, or lacking private health insurance also were more likely to miss taking their meds on schedule, researchers found.

“Our findings point to concerning disparities between men and women’s reports that they take these medications routinely as prescribed, especially among Mexican Americans,” senior study author Lynda Lisabeth, a professor of epidemiology and neurology at the University of Michigan, said in a news release.

“Clinicians might consider screening for these factors and discussing the importance of not missing doses when prescribing these medications to patients to help reduce their risk of having another stroke,” Lisabeth added.

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