Personal Health Perceptions as Predictors to Medication Adherence in a Prospective Cohort Study Among Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Background: Though adherence to disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) among persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) varies and is often below 80%, only few prospective studies on adherence examined predictors beyond demographic and clinical characteristics. Objectives: Identify antecedents to adherence and persistence in a prospective design among PwMS.Methods: PwMS (n=186) were prospectively assessed at three time points: baseline, 6 and 12 months later. Clinical, demographic information and patient-reported medication beliefs, illness perceptions, medication habits, perceived health and affect were assessed. Adherence and persistence were assessed by a combination of self-reports and retrospective review of medication claims. Findings: PwMS were 69.9% (Time 1) and 71% (Time 2) adherent to their DMTs and 64.5.9% were persistent. Beliefs about Medications were consistently predictive at both time points (baseline to Time 1 and Time 1 to Time 2) of medication adherence and persistence whereas other perceptions were predictive at some analyses; clinical and demographic characteristic were mostly not predictive of adherence nor persistence. The prospective association of beliefs about medication with adherence held also in multivariate analyses.Conclusions: Adherence and persistence are predicted by medication beliefs of PwMS. As medication beliefs are modifiable, they should be assessed periodically and targeted as a focus of tailored interventions aimed to improve adherence and consequently health outcomes in PwMS.

Identification of Immunosuppressive Medication Nonadherence Factors Through a Combined Theory Model in Renal Transplant Recipients

“…An effective application of the HBM model has been conducted to predict IM nonadherence among RTPs in our transplant center, and our results indicated that perceived seriousness and perceived barriers were closely associated with IM nonadherence (Xia et al, 2019). Also, a recent study indicated that beliefs about medications were more powerful predictors to nonadherence than clinical or sociodemographic factors among patients with multiple sclerosis (Neter et al, 2021). The theory of planned behavior (TPB), as a cognitive model, also exhibited several advantages to predict a wide range of health-related behaviors (Andrew et al, 2016;Caru et al, 2020).…”