Abstracts

Rationale: Adherence to treatment as a measure of the patient's behavior is a reflection of acceptance of the health professionals recommendation. Non-adherence in patients with epilepsy results in worsening of attacks, increased mortality, deterioration of the quality of life. The aim of our study was to measure the adherence of patients with epilepsy using validated questionnaire MMAS-8.Methods: To determine adherence, a validated self-reported questionnaire MMAS-8 (8-item Morisky) was used, and according to the results the adherence was divided into High, Medium and Low Adherence. Under the new ILAE (2010) classification, the patients were divided into generalized and focal epilepsy; according to seizures occurrence the patients were divided into compensated and uncompensated. We studied whether the patient takes one, two or more drugsResults: The questionnaire was filled in by 90 consecutive patients aged 18-80 years, average age was 42.3, out of which there were 45 women and 45 men. 53.3% had focal and 46.7% generalized epilepsy. 41.1% (7) were on monotherapy, 18.9% (17) on duotherapy and 40.0% (36) took three or more drugs. Patients with high adherence accounted for 43%, out of which there were 55% women and 45% men. 50% were on monotherapy, 17.5% on duotherapy and 32.5% on more than two antiepileptic drugs (AED). 45% were compensated and 55% uncompensated. Patients with medium adherence accounted for 41%, out of which there were 54% women and 46% men. 27.0 % were on monotherapy, 21.6% on duotherapy and 51.3% on more than two AED. 45% were compensated and 55% uncompensated. Patients with low adherence accounted for 14.4%, out of which there were 23.1% women and 76.9% men. 46.0% were on monotherapy, 15.4% on duotherapy and 38.4% on more than two AED. 38.5% were compensated and 61.5% uncompensated. All groups were mutually compared using χ2 test. The P-Value was 0.154831, 0.560557 and 0.571399. The results were not significant at p< 0,10 and p<0.05Conclusions: Test χ2 failed to prove consistency between the different groups. We noticed some trends from which we conclude that a risk predictor for low adherence may be male gender and inadequate compensation of epilepsy. Monotherapy fails to show any statistically significant preconditions for high adherence.