Assessment of Medication Adherence in Patients with Type-11 Diabetes Mellitus

Objective: To assess the extent of medication adherence in patients suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Methodology: The study protocol was approved by the hospital human ethical committee. The patients (in-patients and out-patients) suffering from Type-2 DM of either sex who were aged 35 years and above and patient diagnosed with Type 2 DM for more than one year who were either on parenteral or oral anti diabetic medication treatment were prospectively enrolled for six months. The patient, clinical, medication and socioeconomic data were collected into specialized patient profile form. Different levels education considered were: Post-gradates, graduates, schooling and illiterate. The patient medication adherence was assessed using Morisky Medication adherence scale. Each answer was dichotomously scored. Accordingly, each correct answer is awarded a score of zero while every incorrect or unsure answer was awarded a score of one. The scores were totalled and categorized as: Score 0 = High adherence, Score 1-3 = Moderate adherence and Score > 3 = Poor adherence.

Result and Discussion: Totally 450 patients (Males 61%, Females 39%) suffering from Type-2 DM were enrolled. Mean age of the patients was 61years. Majority of the enrolled patients were graduates (198) 50% followed by the patients with basic level of school education( 116) 29% , and (69) 17% were illiterate and least number of patients were post graduates (17) 4 %.

Among the patients who were assessed for their medication adherence, majority (219) (54.75%) had poor adherence followed by 31.5% patients who had moderate adherence. However, (13.75%) patients had high adherence. This indicates that majority of patients were not adherent to their medications. Research has shown that patients with diabetes mellitus have one of the lowest medication adherence rates at 65% to 85%.Factors that could influence the patients adherence were assessed and were able to find with four clear causes included forgetfulness (64.25%),feeling better (75%),feeling worse(79.25%) and inconvenience (61.75%).

Conclusion: Majority of the patients suffering from Type-2 diabetes mellitus have poor medication adherence.