Factors Associated with the Lack of Adherence to Drug Therapy in Diabetic Patients

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 347 million people living with diabetes, being one of the leading causes of death in our days. Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by an increase in glycemia values above normal, which is accompanied by late complications derived from progressive damage in kidney, retina, vessels, heart, and nervous system. The best way to avoid these complications is adherence to treatment. However, the lack of treatment continuity is very frequent. This paper demonstrated that in 76% of the cases, patients with diabetes do not accomplish the prescribed treatment. The main causes of this situation are related to the patient's habits (since diabetes has no symptoms, the patients skip doses) and to the health system (due to the lack of free drug provision, patients do not have access to the treatment). From this data, health country authorities initiated a program to aware patients of the importance to accomplish the treatment and provided free drug for those patients.