ABSTRACT
Whether a person takes prescribed medicine depends on a range of factors: first their health and the nature and severity of any health problems; then, the person’s perceptions of those problems as likely to be relieved or helped by medical or other intervention or advice; after that the relationship between the person and the doctor - whether the doctor is accessible and seen as likely to be helpful and sympathetic and, in addition, the views and experience of both the doctor and the patient on whether medicine is likely to do more good than harm to the person in their particular circumstances. All these factors: health, relationships between elderly people and their doctors, and attitudes to medicines are interrelated and, as we show, health is related to sex, age, housing tenure, and household circumstances.
