Assessment of Determinants of medication adherence amongst the elderly patients with chronic disease in Tabriz-2017

Abstract

Introduction adherence to long term medication regimen for chronic diseases is one of the major challenges health care providers are facing in dealing with older adults. Investigation of cognitive determinants of medication adherence in older adults would be helpful to gain a better understanding of causes of the non-adherence in older men and women. The main purpose of this study was to Assessment of Determinants of medication adherence in a sample of older adults with at least a chronic condition. Methods A series of validated questionnaires were applied for face to face collection of data from randomly selected 477 elder people who had been recruited from urban health care centers in Tabriz, Iran. The study participants’ knowledge and beliefs about prescribed medications, perceived self-efficacy for medication adherence, illness perception and their reasons for nonadherence were questioned from June to August 2017. Results According to the findings 70% of the study population had low medication adherence scores. In comparison to single elders, married elders had significantly better medication adherence (double) and also it was found a significant difference in term of medication adherence among those who had insurance and assistance for medication administration (31.4%). In this study we did not find any significant difference between women and men who had cognitive limitations in terms of medication adherence (women 30.60% and men 30.1%), which is in line with the results of a number of previous studies. Perceived self-efficacy in medication adherence (PV =0/001) and knowledge about prescribed medicines (PV=0/034) were two significant predictors of medication adherence among the older adult men. Illness perception (PV=0/04), beliefs toward prescribed medication (PV=0/038) and perceived selfefficacy in medication adherence (PV=0/009) were significant predictors of medication adherence in the studied women. Conclusion This study demonstrate that medication adherence in older adults with a history of chronic diseases is a complex phenomenon and findings of the current study indicated that several factors are contributing to medication adherence in this population. Thus, in providing care to older adults and for improve of their adherence to medications, in addition to demographic factors, more important cognitive determinants of medication adherence must be taken into account. This consideration even in training of care providers to older adults will contribute to the added efficiency of disease management interventions through increasing their medication adherence.