The Relationship of Drug Compliance with Depression, Anxiety and Coping Strategies in Patients with Kidney Transplantation

One of the influent factors in successful kidney transplantation is complete drug compliance in patients; but some of the studies had shown that some patients are not fully compliant because of several reasons including psychological factors. This study aimed to assess the relationship of the drug compliance in patient with kidney transplantation with psychological factors including depression, anxiety and coping strategies.
In a cross-sectional study during 2015-2016 in Alzahra and Noor and Aliasghar Hospitals in Isfahan, Iran, 85 patients with kidney transplantation were assessed in terms of relationship of drug compliance with psychological factors such as depression, anxiety and coping strategies using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Brief COPE (coping strategy) inventory and the simplified medication adherence questionnaire (SMAQ).
Findings: In this study, 43 patients (50.6%) were compliant and 42 patients (49.4%) were noncompliant. The mean score of anxiety showed no significant difference between the two groups (P = 0.210), but the mean score of depression was significantly higher in noncompliant group (P = 0.043). The mean score of religious sub scale of coping strategies was higher in compliant group significantly (P = 0.039).
According to this study, drug compliance in patients with kidney transplantation is related to depression significantly and diagnosis and treatment of depression is very important in these patients.