Medication Adherence and its Association with Socioeconomic Factors and Quality of Life in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

Abstract Background: Medication adherence to prescribed medications in chronic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is influenced by social and economic factors, health-care team/system factors, characteristic of the disease, disease therapies, and physician-related and patient-related factors. Socioeconomic factors of the patients play a major role in adherence to long-term therapies. In view of lack of consistent findings and limited studies, this study aimed to study the socioeconomic factors and quality of life (QOL) and their association with medication adherence in RA. Materials and Methods: This is a prospective observational study carried out in a tertiary care hospital from February 2021 to June 2021. The Compliance-Questionnaire-Rheumatology 19 was used to assess adherence with scores ≥80% considered adherent and others nonadherent. QOL was assessed by the WHOQOL-BREF Questionnaire, and socioeconomic factors were determined using the Modified Kuppuswamy’s Socioeconomic Status scale 2020. Results: Of the 135 patients (108 females and 27 males) in the study, adherence was observed only in 19.3% (26) and the remaining 80.7% (109) were nonadherent. There was a significant difference (P = 0.013) in the number of medications used among both the groups. Among the socioeconomic factors, though there is difference in occupation of both the groups, it was found be not significant (P = 0.058). There was no association of adherence with any of the four domains of QOL. Conclusion: There was no association of medication adherence with socioeconomic factors and QOL in RA.