What are the risk factors of poor medication adherence in the target-to-treat era?

Özet

Objectives: This study aims to identify adherence rate and risk factors of poor adherence in patients with tightly controlled rheumatoid arthritis (RA) based on the treat-to-target (TTT) strategy.Patients and methods: In this cross-sectional, observational study, a total of 103 patients (22 males, 81 females; mean age 58.6±9.5 years;range, 35 to 76 years) with tightly controlled RA between November 2016 and May 2017 were included. The patients were evaluated in termsof sociodemographic features, smoking and alcohol drinking status, body mass index (BMI), Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28), and clinicaland medication data. They filled out a series of standardized questionnaires including the Morisky 8-item Medication Adherence Scale(MMAS-8), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and Health Assessment Questionnaire-DisabilityIndex (HAQ-DI). Multiple multivariate linear regression analysis was used to identify variables which were possibly associated with theMMAS-8.Results: Of the patients, 53 (51.5%) were non-adherent and 50 (48.5%) were adherent to medication. The DAS28-erythrocyte sedimentationrate, mean DAS28, HAQ, BDI scores, and the number of visits were higher and the MMSE scores were lower in non-adherent patients thanadherent patients. In the linear multivariate analysis, significant associations were found between the MMAS-8 and MMSE, BDI, DAS28,and mean DAS28 scores.Conclusion: Our study results show that the medication adherence rate is significantly higher compared to previous studies and high diseaseactivity, depression, and cognitive dysfunction significantly affect medication adherence in this patient population.