Assessment of Level of Adherence among Diabetic Patients in Tertiary Care Hospital of Multan, Pakistan

Background: Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic disorder and a managerial disease that requires regular intake of medications. Whatever the efficacy of the drug, it is only effective when the patients take it at regular intervals. Most patients have been prescribed a very difficult regimen of exercise, diet, and medicines containing several pills in for a day which affects the disease management. Objective: The main Objective of the adherence study in diabetic patients is to assess the level of adherence in the diabetic population with the aim to prevent the complication and symptoms of diabetes that may be life-threatening if there is poor disease management with low levels of drug adherence. The main significance of the adherence study is to literate the people and to reduce the mortality and morbidity rate of diabetic patients. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted between February 2019 to April 2019 among diabetic patients. The data was collected from the out-patient diabetic section of Nishtar Medical University and Hospital Multan, Punjab, Pakistan through DAI-10 (Drug Attitude Inventory) scale (Urdu Version). The convenience sampling method was used for data collection. A sample of 103 people was collected and analyzed using software MICROSOFT EXCEL 2007 and then transferred to IBM SPSS v25 to evaluate the results for the level of adherence in this population. Result: A total of 103 patients participated in this study. Amongst them, 62.1% were male and 37.9% were female. The results after these indirect observation showed that 60.2% study population was adherent, 27.2% were partially adherent and 12.6% were non-adherent. Conclusion: The finding of the current study showed approximately 60% adherence level in the study population The non-adherence rates were found significantly more in rural areas than urban areas.