Compliance to drug therapy in university hospital outpatients with chronic digestive diseases

Abstract

Compliance to drug treatment is an important determinant of patient's clinical evolution and health system expenditure. However, studies on compliance in chronic digestive diseases are scarce. In order to investigate compliance to prescribed medication and factors affecting it, a cross-sectional, indirect study was carried out among 110 outpatients of a University Hospital Gastroenterology clinic. These patients were characterized as presenting either higher or lower degree of compliance by two different instruments. The same classification was made after applying the Morisky test, which is based on patient answers to four standardized direct questions. The interview identified 15 (13.7%) patients as not following correctly the prescribed treatment. However, up to 64 patients (58.2%) were classified as less compliant by the Morisky test, which also indicated a non-intentional behavior in 50 (78.1%) out of these patients. There were no relationships between compliance and either disease nature or free access to medication. Also, univariate and multivariate statistical analysis showed that none of the demographic, social, clinical, or drug-related factors presented any statistically significant relationship that could indicate an influence on compliance to treatment. Low compliance to drug treatment is relatively common amongst patients with chronic digestive disease.