Abstract
Purpose
Asthma affects an estimated 300 million people worldwide. Poor adherence to prescribed preventive medications, especially among children with asthma, leads to increased mortality and morbidity. The purpose of this study was to assess the adherence and persistence levels of asthmatic children at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Center (UKMMC), a tertiary care teaching hospital, and to determine the factors that influence adherence to prescribed preventive medications.
Patients and methods
Participants were asthmatic patients aged 18 years and younger with at least one prescription for a preventive medication refilled between January and December 2011. Refill records from the pharmacy dispensing database were used to determine the medication possession ratio (MPR) and continuous measure of gaps (CMG), measures of adherence and persistence levels, respectively.
Results
The sample consisted of 218 children with asthma from the General and Respiratory pediatric clinics at UKMMC. The overall adherence level was 38% (n=83; MPR ≥80%), and the persistence level was 27.5% (n=60; CMG ≤20%). We found a significant association between the adherence and persistence levels (r=0.483, P<0.01). The presence of comorbidities significantly predicted the adherence (odds ratio [OR] =16.21, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.76–33.84, P<0.01) and persistence level (OR =2.63, 95% CI: 0.13–52.79, P<0.01). Other factors, including age, sex, ethnicity, duration of asthma diagnosis, and number of prescribed preventive medications did not significantly affect adherence or persistence (P>0.05).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the adherence level among children with asthma at UKMMC was low. The presence of comorbidities was found to influence adherence towards preventive medications in asthmatic children.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the pharmacy staff at the UKMMC for access to the pharmacy’s computerized dispensing database. In addition, we give special thanks to the hospital Medical Records staff for their help in retrieving medical records.
Disclosure
There was no funding received for this research. The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.