Adherence and Barriers to Drug Therapy: Relationship With the Risk of Falls in Older Adults

Abstract

Objective: to verify the association of adherence and barriers to drug therapy with the risk of falls and the sociodemographic, clinical and economic variables. Method: a cross-sectional study, carried out with 117 aged individuals in a Medical Clinic of Specialties for Older Adults in the Southeast region of the city of São Paulo (SP), from March to November 2019. The following scales were applied: Downton Fall Risk, Morisky-Green Test and Brief Medication Questionnaire. Logistic regression was use to verify the association between adherence to the treatment and types of barriers to adherence and the risk of falls. A 5% significance level was used. Results: the older adults with low adherence to the drug treatment presented 5.57 times more chances of having a high risk of falling when compared to those with greater adherence, and those with a barrier in the recall domain had 22.75 times more chances of having a high risk of falling, in relation to the aged individuals without barriers in the recall domain. Conclusion: low and average adherence to drug therapy and the barrier related to the recall domain were associated with high risk of falls in the older adults.

Adesão farmacoterapêutica de idosos institucionalizados: uma revisão integrativa

“…Dessa forma, com o aumento na prevalência das DCNT em idosos a associação de vários medicamentos é um fato natural, uma vez que torna-se necessário para o controle dessas doenças. Esse fato é observado pois o acompanhamento da pessoa idosa em muitos casos são realizados por múltiplos especialistas em saúde, que na maioria das vezes não possuem ligação profissional entre si, o que pode gerar à uma possível polifarmácia em cuja definição traz a utilização de 5 ou mais medicamentos por uma só pessoa (Soares, 2022).…”