Compliance of the patients and related influential factors on the topical antifungal treatment of onychomycosis

Abstract

To explore the compliance rate of patients and its influential factors on topical antifungal treatment of onychomycosis. Dermatology life quality index (DLQI) and self-administered questionnaires were employed in this study. The overall compliance rate of the topical antifungal treatment was 23.9% (92/385). The cure rates on onychomycosis in patients with good compliance was 63.04% (58/92), but only 2.05% (6/293) in those noncompliant patients, respectively. Regarding the influencing factors as age, sex, level of awareness, occupation, course of disease, personal income, inconvenience in access to the treatment, keep forgetting in taking the medicine, being impatient, lack of confidence, misunderstanding on topical as 'dirty' and the process of drug taking was troublesome, together with the quality of life were identified. There were significant differences between those compliant or noncompliant patients. For some factors as adverse effects of drug, number of affected nails, site of the disease, too busy in daily life, lack of related knowledge etc., no significant differences were found between the compliant or noncompliant patients. Our results showed that onychomycosis patients had poor compliance in topical antifungal treatment which significantly influencing the therapeutic effects. Age, sex, level of awareness on the disease, occupation, course of disease, personal income, inconvenience in receiving the treatment, forgetting to take the medicine, lack of patience, lack of confidence, different kinds of misunderstanding about the disease and quality of life etc. might affect the compliance rate of the disease.