INVESTIGATION OF FACTORS AFFECTING ADHERENCE TO METFORMIN THERAPY IN TYPE 2 DIABETES

Abstract

Adherence is the degree to which the patient’s behavior (taking medication, following a diet, and/or changing lifestyle) matches the agreed recommendations of the prescriber. Adherence is influenced by socio-economic factors, factors related to the health system, factors related to the disease, factors related to the patient and factors related to therapy. Many methods have been developed to measure adherence. Methods are divided into direct and indirect. Adherence is usually lower in patients with chronic conditions than in patients with acute conditions. More recent studies show adherence values to oral antidiabetic therapy of 65-85%. Adherence is usually considered optimal when patients take at least 80% of their prescribed medication. The research conducted on the sample made up of middle-aged, non-adherent respondents (35-65), who have been using metformin for a minimum of 6 months in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus showed the influence of different factors on adherence. The factors that showed the greatest influence on the low degree of adherence are: lower education, passive life, low physical activity, smoking, long-term therapy, change of therapy, concomitant therapy, metformin dosing more than 2 times a day, forgetting to take therapy. The average value of blood sugar for all subjects is 10.5 mmol/L, which indicates the ineffectiveness of the prescribed therapy, and which can be directly linked to the determined non-adherence of subjects to metformin therapy.