Poor therapeutic compliance is the most important cause of failure to achieve the desired results in the management of chronic ailments and health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension etc. Uncontrolled diabetes increases the risks of associated micro and macrovascular complications. There are many factors responsible for non-compliance such as awareness and knowledge about the disease, its nature and associated complications, number of drugs advised, concerns about side effects, convenience of dosing and the cost of therapy etc. Compliance rates for drug use and life style modifications vary considerably among diabetes patients.
A total of 210 registered, ambulatory Type-2 diabetes patients attending the clinic were included for the study of the level of their therapeutic compliance, and finding recorded based on their case files, their verbal reporting, physician’s assessment and some times by actually counting of pills remaining.
A qualitative review of literature search of Medline database from 1990 onwards was undertaken to assimilate similar findings reported by others for comparison with our findings.
The most common reasons for non-compliance in our study were cost of medication followed by forgetfulness, concerns about side effects, multiplicity of pills and large pill size.