Drug adherence of diabetes patients in Hong Kong : a systematic review

Abstract

Introduction The objectives of this study focus on the evaluation of medication adherence of diabetic patients attending public healthcare services in Hong Kong. With the changes in lifestyle and dietary habits, diabetes is being more common in Hong Kong, and it could leadto a lot of severe complications. The high prevalence and disease severity is posing a severe burden on the society. Consequently, it is important to monitor patients’ medication adherence and self-care behaviours. In this paper, apart from evaluating medication adherence, reasons that influence adherence and potential methods for improving adherence will be discussed.

Methodology A systematic literature search was conducted for this study and 48 related articles were yielded. After screening with inclusion and exclusion criteria, 5 literatures were selected for the study. A wide range of factors were explored in these studies, such as age, income, lifestyles, comorbidities etc.

Results The five selected studies included three cross-sectional studies, one cohort study and one RCT. Although each study used a different approach in assessing adherence, all reported relatively high compliance compared to foreign studies. Factors such as old age, medication review and social support were found to increase adherence, while cognitive impairment, perceived poor health condition and negative mood would reduce adherence.

Conclusion Even medication compliance was found to be generally high, there are still patients with poor adherence. Based on the factors found to be related to compliance, more methods for improving adherence could be designed, matching the needs of different patients. In the future, further research need to be done to include larger samples in order to obtain more precise and generalizable results. Healthcare workers should provide more time and effort in evaluating patients’ adherence, and a standard method for assessing medication adherence should be developed.