Adherence to Pharmacological Treatment of Chronic Nonmalignant Pain in Individuals Aged 65 and Older

Abstract

According to their own statements, 57% of the patients were nonadherent, while 84% exhibited some form of nonadherence on the Morisky scale. The patients reported a mean pain intensity of 6.6 ± 2.2 on a visual analog scale. The most common deviation from the prescribed therapy was self-adjustment of the dose and medical regimen based on the severity of pain. Polymedication correlated positively with nonadherence. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were the most frequently prescribed medications. The majority of the participants (59%) believed that higher pain intensity indicates progression of the disease, and half of the participants believed that one can easily become addicted to pain medications. Nonadherence was associated with patient attitudes about addiction to analgesics and ability of analgesics to control pain. CONCLUSION.: High pain intensity and nonadherence found in this study suggest that physicians should monitor older patients with chronic nonmalignant pain more closely and pay more attention to patients' beliefs regarding analgesics to ensure better adherence to pharmacological therapy.

Systematic review of the barriers affecting medication adherence in older adults

“…Out of 259 articles that were relevant to our objective, 32 duplicates were removed and 162 articles did not fulfil the inclusion criteria, leaving 65 articles for review. In these 65 articles, four (6%) were randomized controlled trials (RCT), 11 (17%) were cohort studies, 14 (22%) were case control studies, 11 (17%) were cross‐sectional studies and the rest were qualitative studies.…”

“…A total of 41 factors from 42 studies have been identified from the search . As shown in Table , they are grouped into the following seven categories: mental state, physical health, demographics, past medical history, behavior, knowledge or beliefs of the patients and other factors.…”

“…Factors under knowledge or beliefs include beliefs about medications, lack of threatening view of illness, higher perceived illness burden, lack of perceived benefit of medications, knowledge of chronicity of illness and consequences of illness, and lack of knowledge of condition …”

Prevalência de doenças musculoesqueléticas autorreferidas segundo variáveis demográficas e de saúde: estudo transversal de idosos de Goiânia/GO

“…Um trabalho prospectivo observacional 31 identificou que a dor foi proporcionalmente aumentada conforme a idade e a perda da mobilidade por DME autorrelatadas. Neste estudo, não foi abordado o controle da dor nem a adesão a medicamentos, porém, outra pesquisa com idosos em um centro de tratamento medicamentoso para dor crônica 32 identificou que a maioria dos agentes causadores da dor crônica era as DME. Além disso, outro estudo 33 revelou ser frequente na população idosa com alguma DME a automedicação para o controle dos sintomas.…”

Calidad de vida y adherencia al tratamiento en pacientes con enfermedad de Parkinson

“…Llama la atención que este bajo porcentaje es similar al encontrado en otros estudios que utilizan este mismo cuestionario en pacientes de población anciana 20,21 . No obstante, en pacientes de EP, con el mismo cuestionario, se obtuvo un porcentaje de pacientes adherentes más alto (60.4%) 22 .…”