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Patients with arthritis prescribed biologic therapy may not be adherent to treatment
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis who are prescribed biologic therapy may not be adherent to treatment, according to the results of recently published research.
“In the era of new and effective high-cost drugs, there is the assumption that people with rheumatoid arthritis regularly take their medication as prescribed, but our findings challenge this assumption,” Ian Bruce, MD, FRCP, director of the Manchester Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit, said in a press release. “We have shown that health professionals should not assume that because biologics are effective and expensive that all patients will take these as prescribed.”
The study involved 329 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated with Humira (adalimumab, AbbVie) who were recruited from the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register between May 2007 and April 2009. Baseline demographics, socioeconomic status, disease activity scores with 28 items (DAS28), functional scores using the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), quality of life scores using the SF-36 and the EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) questionnaire, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) scores were collected in addition to information about medication beliefs.
At follow-up, adherence was assessed using the Compliance Questionnaire for Rheumatology (CQR), and multilevel mixed-effects models were used to identify predictors of adherence.
Low adherence was reported in 23% of patients, and 41% reported low adherence during at least one time point, according to the researchers.
Higher beliefs in medication necessity, fewer concerns about side effect, increased family support, strong understanding that the illness is chronic and increased treatment response were independently predictive of increased adherence after adjusting for age and disease duration.
“If we can find ways to inform, support and empower our patients better, we may also be able to improve the regularity of taking these very effective medications in this potentially disabling condition,” Bruce said. “Such an approach may be extremely cost-effective, reduce the need for further intensive treatments and reduce unnecessary wastage of expensive drugs.” - by Shirley Pulawski
Disclosures: Morgan reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.