Working Paper: NBER ID: w29356
Authors: Amy Finkelstein; Petra Persson; Maria Polyakova; Jesse M. Shapiro
Abstract: We use administrative data from Sweden to study adherence to 63 medication-related guidelines. We compare the adherence of patients without personal access to medical expertise to that of patients with access, namely doctors and their close relatives. We estimate that observably similar patients with access to expertise have 3.8 percentage points lower adherence, relative to a baseline adherence rate of 54.4 percent among those without access. Our findings suggest an important role in non-adherence for factors other than those, such as ignorance, poor communication, and complexity, that would be expected to diminish with access to expertise.
Keywords: guideline adherence; medical expertise; Sweden; administrative data
JEL Codes: D83; I12; I18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Access to medical expertise (I11) | Lower adherence to medication guidelines (I18) |
| Access to medical expertise (I11) | Greater comfort with pharmaceuticals (L65) |
| Access to medical expertise (I11) | Lower adherence to medication guidelines for guidelines with weaker clinical support (I18) |
| Access to medical expertise (I11) | Lower adherence to antibiotic guidelines (I18) |