Effects of medication adherence on disease activity in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

The disease activity of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients is often measured, which can could be related to medication adherence. Yet, there is no systematic inventory of studies comparing adherents and non-adherent patients in terms of disease activity. The systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to reveal the effect of medication adherence on disease activity in patients with COPD. For the present meta-analysis, studies comparing medication adherence in adherents and non-adherent patients were screened and included. Results were expressed as mean difference (MD) and 95% CI. A total of eleven identified studies matched the inclusion criteria, reporting on a total of 6,346 COPD patients in the analysis. The number of exacerbations in COPD patients over a year was significantly lower in non-adherent patients than in adherent subjects (MD = 0.69, 95% CI [0.36,1.01], P < 0.0001). Similarly, a significant difference was observed between medication-adherent and non-adherent groups in FEV₁ (MD = −166.47, 95% CI [−255.03, −77.92], P= 0.0002). Interestingly, the results of the meta-analysis showed no significant difference between medication-adherent and non-adherent patients in SGRQ (MD = −0.85, 95% CI [−4.98, 3.27], P= 0.68), CAT (MD = −0.83, 95% CI [−1.78, 0.13], P= 0.09), and FEV₁% (MD = −3.33, 95% CI [−6.83, 0.17], P= 0.06).The studies performed suggested that clinical medical staff should pay attention to the medication behavior of COPD patients and effectively improve the medication adherence of patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• medication adherence
• disease activity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Project of Soft science research of Shanxi Province, China (grant no. 2019041041-3), called based on CDIO teaching mode application in the clinical practice of undergraduate nursing students of 2022 in Shanxi Province colleges and universities teaching innovation project(grant no. J20220339),The 2021 postgraduate education innovation project of Shanxi Province 2021Y424 named the construction and effect evaluation of pulmonary rehabilitation intervention program for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease based on IMB skill model(grant no. 2021Y424; Shanxi Province Colleges and Universities Teaching Innovation ProjectShanxi Province Colleges and Universities Teaching Innovation Project [J20220339];