Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Medication Adherence (MA) is the extent to which patients follow medical instructions. Poor MA is frequently encountered in the majority of chronic diseases, including diabetes. The aim of our study was to evaluate MA in patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Patients and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study over a period of 2 months, including patients with poorly controlled T2DM, followed at the endocrinology department of university hospital Taher Sfar Mahdia. MA was assessed using the Morisky compliance questionnaire.

Results: A total of 59 patients were included with a mean age of 64.1±9.6 years (56.8% were females). The mean duration of diabetes was 15.7±7.6 years. Diabetes was complicated in 81.4% of cases. The average hemoglobin A1c was 10.63%. Poly-medication was observed in 76.5% of patients with an average of 9.6 medications per day. Therapeutic education was performed in only 38.6% of patients. According to the Morisky score, 26.4% of patients had a good MA, 41.7% had medium MA and 31.9% had low MA. Forgetting is the first cause of this bad MA. Patients on insulin had a better MA compared to those on oral antidiabetic medications (P = 0.001).

Discussion and conclusion: MA is a challenge in the management of diabetes to achieve therapeutic goals and to prevent long-term degenerative complications. Hence the interest of therapeutic education, a process that must be continuous in the course of care in order to optimize this MA.