Debi Bhattacharya 
Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy | University of East Anglia
Norwich, UNITED KINGDOM
She is an expert in medication adherence and in deprescribing (providing alternatives to medication).
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Biography
Debi Bhattacharya is Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy in the School of Pharmacy at UEA. She is an expert in medication adherence and in deprescribing (providing alternatives to medication). She explores why (mainly elderly) patients don’t take their prescribed medicines and what can be done to ensure sustained medication regimes. Most recently she has looked at how to reduce “pill organisers” (which are seen as ineffective). As a consequence, she has devised a new tailored self-assessment method (called MASDA – Medication Adherence Support Decision Aid) with proposals to create an app that will be more precision in steering better advice and assistance for take-up of medications.
As well as older people, Debi has been working on medication use within other communities – such as those with sight problems, younger age groups (who face particular issues such as high or low blood pressure), post-treatment cancer patients, people with diabetes, and those suffering with mental health challenges. Her work on deprescribing has led to an opioid deprescribing online tool for use by clinicians, which has secured global demand. Debi also practices as a locum community and primary care pharmacist and she is the chair for the East Anglia Local Practice Forum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Pill Organisers
Medication Adherence Support Decision Aid
Pharmacy
Medication
HIV Medication
Education (2)
University of Bradford: Ph.D., Medication Adherence 2002
University of Bradford: B.Pharm., Pharmacy 1999
Links (3)
Media Appearances (5)
Patients from BAME communities are underrepresented in HIV research
News Medical Life Sciences online
2020-08-27
"It’s really important that people with HIV start taking medication as soon as possible and continue taking it as prescribed for life. While medication can’t cure HIV, taking it correctly helps people live longer, healthier lives. Medication can also reduce the risk of HIV transmission."
Pill Sorters Are Dangerous for Some Patients — Learn When and When Not to Recommend Them
Florence Health online
2019-08-19
How’s this possible? According to Debi Bhattacharya, PhD, from University of East Anglia’s School of Pharmacy, when patients only take their medication sporadically, their provider might increase the dose to help them achieve the desired results. But pill sorters help with adherence and can cause patients to take too much of their medicine, even though it’s technically the prescribed amount.
Pill organisers not for everyone, new guidance warns
ITV News online
2019-08-08
Lead researcher Dr Debi Bhattacharya, from UEA’s School of Pharmacy, said: “A lot of people use pill organisers to help them take the right medication at the right time of the day. “The fact that using a pill organiser could cause harm to patients sounds rather counter-intuitive.
New tool developed to support decision-making on multicompartment compliance aids
The Pharmaceutical Journal online
2019-08-08
Debi Bhattacharya, a senior lecturer in health services research at UEA’s School of Pharmacy and lead researcher on the study, said the research found that patients were more likely to become unwell when they switched to using an MCA, which she suggested was because of increased side effects resulting from patients moving from potentially sporadic adherence to taking all their prescribed medicines.
GPs get training to wean addicts off painkillers
The Times online
2019-05-19
Doctors have already been told to “sit on their hands” and stop giving the powerful drugs to people with chronic pain after an investigation by The Sunday Times exposed rising addiction rates, overdoses and deaths as prescriptions rocketed over the past decade. That call came from Dr Cathy Stannard, a world authority on pain.
Articles (5)
Realist review protocol for understanding the real-world barriers and enablers to practitioners implementing self-management support to people living with and beyond cancer
BMJ Open2020 Self-management support can enable and empower people living with and beyond cancer to take an active role in managing long-term consequences of cancer treatment. Healthcare professionals are key to promoting patients to self-manage, however, they do not routinely engage in these discussions.
Do interventions to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy recognise diversity? A systematic review
AIDS Care2020 People living with HIV (PLWH) are often culturally and linguistically diverse populations; these differences are associated with differing barriers to antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence. Cultural competence measures the extent to which trial design recognises this diversity. This systematic review aimed to determine whether adherence trial participants represent the diversity of PLWH.
Mapping Modifiable Determinants of Medication Adherence in Bipolar Disorder (BD) to the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF): A Systematic Review
SSRN2020 Around 40% of patients with bipolar disorder (BD) are non-adherent to prescribed medication leading to relapse, hospitalisation and increased risk of suicide. Lack of progress in addressing medication non-adherence may be partly attributable to the limited understanding of the modifiable determinants of adherence that should be targeted by interventions.
Quantifying and characterising multi-compartment compliance aid provision
Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy2020 Medication compliance aids (MCAs) to support adherence lack evidence for cost-effectiveness yet a 2001 survey in England estimated 100,000 patients receiving an MCA whilst living in their home.
Development of a hospital deprescribing implementation framework: A focus group study with geriatricians and pharmacists
Age and Ageing2020 Over 50% of older people in hospital are prescribed a pre-admission medicine that is potentially inappropriate; however, deprescribing by geriatricians and pharmacists is limited. This study aimed to characterise geriatricians’ and pharmacists’ barriers and enablers to deprescribing in hospital. It also intended to develop a framework of intervention components to facilitate implementation of hospital deprescribing.
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