A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ADHERENCE AND NON-ADHERENCE TO MEDICATION AMONGST PATIENTS OF DIFFERENT SYSTEM SPECIFIC DISEASES

Objective: To elucidate the frequency of intentional and unintentional non-adherence to medication among patients of different systemic diseases. Study Design: Comparative cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Pak Emirates Military Hospital and Combined Military Hospital Rawalpindi, from Nov 2018 to Jun 2019. Methodology: A total of 80 patients belonging to 4 system specific diseases Asthma, Myocardial infarction (MI), Stroke, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) were recruited. Twenty patients in each group were taken for comparison of medication adherence in their respective disease. Diagnostic Adherence Medication Scale (DAMS) was used for the purpose of data collection. Results: Overall there were 24 (30%) females and 56 (70%) were male patients. Diagnostic adherence medication scale revealed that 40% of the sample was non adherent and 60% were adherent towards their respective medication. Further in non-adherent 23.57% were un-intentionally non-adherent. Non adherence was found more in stroke patients. Chronic kidney disease patients were found most adherent towards medications (70%). Conclusion: The present study highlighted unintentional medication non adherence as a significant barrier for providing complete medical care to the patients of the selected diseases