Evaluation of drug adherence and its effective factors in the elderly

Abstract

The aging period of life is associated with an increased risk of developing chronic diseases. Chronic diseases require medication, increasing year by year. Hence, proper adherence to medication is of great importance in the elderly. The elderly may be due to a variety of health simultaneously treated, lead to polypharmacy and a complicated medication regimen.Various factors may affect the correct use of the drug. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the degree of drug adherence and the factors affecting it in the elderly. Experimental: In this cross-sectional study, by referring to Asadabadi polyclinic with available sampling, after obtaining the consent of the elderly referring to this center, the elderly were included in the study. In addition to providing periodic care by the physician, an 8-item morisky drug compliance questionnaire and a demographic information questionnaire for patients were completed, and the degree of drug compliance of related factors was measured. Data were analyzed by SPSS 26. Demographic characteristics were reported by descriptive statistics. Chi-square, independent T-test and Kendall's tau-b correlation were used and P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: In this study 110 elderly people were examined. In general, among the participating elderly, 96 (87.27%) had poor drug adherence, 13 (11.8%) had moderate drug adherence and 1 (0.09%) had high drug adherence. In the studied population, there was polypharmacy in 77 people (70.7%). There was no significant association between drug adherence and age, gender, employment, marital status, fixed income and education level. The existence of polypharmacy was not significantly associated with gender, the presence or absence of basic and supplementary insurance, the use or non-use of herbal medicines and the frequency of diseases. Conclusion: The prevalence of polypharmacy was high in the elderly patients and also a high percentage of the elderly had undesirable drug adherence. Income level, literacy level, polypharmacy, number of drugs used in the year had no significant relationship with drug adherence.