Patterns of adherence to oral methadone: implications for prescribers.

We investigated patterns of nonadherence to substitute treatment among patients attending an inner London community drug dependency unit and explored factors associated with nonadherence. We undertook 91 face-to-face confidential interviews with methadone-maintained patients attending community pharmacies. Thirty-eight patients (42%) had been either partial or poor adherers to their prescribed methadone regime in the past month.