Investigating Adherence to Medication in Patients Diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Cross-Sectional Study in Iran

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune disease with an unknown etiology. Although there is no definite treatment for this disease but using proper prescribed medications, mortality and morbidity ratios could be decreased.

The present study has attempted to investigate the adherence to medical treatment in patients suffering from SLE and also evaluate the related factors which influenced on their adherence in order to improve patients’ prognosis. In this cross-sectional study, 132 patients with SLE referred to the rheumatology clinic of Imam Khomeini hospital (Tehran, Iran) over the period of 2012-2013 were examined using a questionnaire. The applied questionnaire included two parts; the first part pertains to adherence to medication treatments (CQR: compliance questionnaire rheumatology) and the second part was related to the factors involved in adherence to medication treatments. The obtained data was analyzed using Chi-Square test and processed by SPSS16.0 software.

In this research, the mean adherence to drug treatment was calculated as 72.48%. Among the variables of age, marital status, salary, education, distance from the clinic (accessibility), the duration of disease, the level of patient’s activity, main medications consumed and side effects, there was only a significant association between adherence level and the lack of side effects due to SLE (p