The Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) has been widely used to measure medication adherence; whereas the Adherence to Refills and Medications Scale (ARMS) was developed to measure medication adherence among elderly population. The objective of the study was to assess medication adherence among young adults by using ARMS as well as MMAS and to evaluate determine which scales helps better in determining predictors of medication non adherence among young adults. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a sample of students attending a large university. A validated survey instrument was used to obtain information on socio-demographic variables, medication behavior, and factors responsible for non-adherence. Medication adherence was measured using MMAS (six questions) on a dichotomous (yes/no) scale with 'yes' being medically non-adherent and ARMS scale with 12 questions on a 4-point Likert scale. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to assess predictors of non-adherence for both the scales. RESULTS: A total of 300 completed surveys were received (response rate 86%). Mean (SD) age of the sample was 23.4 (4.3) years. Participants indicated they were adherent with their medication therapy where mean (SD) ARMS score was 1.7 (0.4) (≤2 considered adherent) and MMAS scores was 2.6 (1.9) (≤3 considered adherent). Spearman correlation coefficient was 0.71 (p<0.0001). Predictors of medication non adherence using the ARMS were: forgetfulness (β:0.25, p<0.0001), time constraint (β:0.18, p=0.0004), social stigma (β:0.14, p<0.0001), gender (β:-0.09, p=0.01) and difficulty in remembering all medications (β:0.09, p=0.0003); whereas that using the MMAS were: forgetfulness (β:1.07, p=0.003) and difficulty in remembering all medications (β:1.41, p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Medication adherence information obtained using ARMS were able to identify more predictors compared to MMAS in the cohort of young adults. Future application of the scales to different populations could be beneficial.

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