Evaluation of Treatment Adherence in Iraqi Patients with Behçet's Disease

Summary:

Behçet's disease (BD) is a multisystemic vasculitis with chronic relapsing course. Adherence to treatment plays important role in management of these patients, nonetheless, adherence to treatment among these patients has not been well studied, particularly among Iraqi patients, hence this study aimed to evaluate adherence to treatment in Iraqi  patients with Behçet’s disease & determine the factors associated with non-adherence to treatment in such patients. We conducted a cross-sectional study at the Rheumatology Unit of Baghdad Teaching Hospital in Medical City including 75 patients. We use the Compliance Questionnaire for Rheumatology (CQR5) and Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) in evaluation of patients. We found that  65.3% of the patients were low adherent to treatment, factors associated with low adherence were, longer disease duration , using too many medications, high cost of treatment, fear of side effect , difficulty of oral intake and lack of family support While being married, higher level of educations, good belief in the necessity of medications and low disease activity associated with better level of adherence.