Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF MEDICATION ADHERENCE AND QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG PATIENTS WITH DIABETES MELLITUS

Gireesh K. M., Bija Aby, M. Sai Sushma Priya*, Mohammed Azeel and Dr. Vinod Naik

.

Abstract

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a syndrome of multiple etiologies characterized by chronic hyperglycemia. Medication nonadherence is one of the important causes of sub-optimally controlled DM and causes serious deterioration in general QoL mainly affecting health-related QoL. Objectives: To assess medication adherence and quality of life among patients with DM. Methodology: A prospective observational questionnaire-based study was conducted for a period of six months. The level of adherence was assessed by using a medication adherence questionnaire, 10 scale medication adherence questionnaire forms and the patient's QOL was assessed by using PAID scale. The results were analysed by using Microsoft Excel Sheet. Results: Among 160 patients the majority of them were male (112) with Type2-DM. 134 of them are non-adhered to their anti-diabetic medications showing a moderate level of nonadherence with some significant contributing factors like taking anti-diabetic medications since many years.‖ The average PAID score of patients was 48.6. Factors like ―worrying about future complications and ―diabetes taking up too much energy were statistically significant (P-0.044 and P-0.030). Conclusion: DM arise most of the medication adherence and quality of life problems. Factors like finance, lack of knowledge, polypharmacy and physical and psychological illness cause serious deterioration in patient’s quality of life that needs to be addressed. We found some of those factors and provided appropriate patient education to resolve those problems.

Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus (DM), Medication Adherence, Quality of Life (QoL), Patient Education.