Influence of patient training on persistence, compliance and tolerability of different frequency dosing regimens of bisphosphonate therapy: An observational study in Turkish patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the influence of training on compliance and persistence with bisphosphonate treatment prescribed on a weekly vs. monthly basis in postmenopausal osteoporosis patients. Patients and methods: A total of 979 patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis (mean (SD) age: 63.2 (7.2) years) were included in this national, multicenter, prospective non-interventional observational cohort registry study. Patients were randomized into training (n=492, 50.3%, mean (SD) age: 63.4 (7.2) years) and control (n=487, 49.7%, mean (SD) age: 63.0 (7.1) years) groups. Patients in each intervention group were prescribed weekly (44.9% and 44.6% of training and controls, respectively) or monthly (55.1% and 55.4%, respectively) bisphosphonate regimens. After the initial visit, patients were followed-up at 3-month intervals during 12 months of treatment for evaluation of persistence, compliance, and adverse events. Results: Overall, 79.4% of patients were persistent with bisphosphonate treatment with an average of 350.4 days of duration during 12-month follow up. Overall compliant and fully compliant group remained at an average of 87.3% and no difference was determined between training and control groups in terms of treatment compliance and persistence. Significantly longer persistence (360.0(89.0) vs. 345.0(108.0) days, p=0.035), higher percentage of persistent patients (83.4 vs. 74.2%, p=0.012) and higher compliance (88.8 vs. 83.3%, p=0.002) were noted in monthly than weekly bisphosphonate regimen. Conclusions: Our findings revealed remarkably high rates for persistence and compliance with bisphosphonate treatment in postmenopausal osteoporosis with no impact of training on compliance and persistence rates. Monthly bisphosphonate regimen was associated with longer persistence and better compliance than weekly regimen. DOI: 10.3944/AOTT.2015.15.0264 This abstract belongs to the un-edited version of the article and is only for informative purposes. Published version may differ from the current version.