Validation of the Short Form of the Adherence to Refills and Medications Scale in Iranian Elders with Chronic Disease

Abstract

Introduction: Evaluating medication adherence in chronic diseases is important to understand the effectiveness of treatment. A reliable, valid, and practical measure is needed to assess medication adherence for Iranian patients. Aim: To translate and validate the Short Form of the Adherence to Refills and Medications Scale (ARMS-SF) in Iranian elders with chronic disease. Materials and Methods: The ‘forward-backward’ procedure was applied to translate the scale. One hundred patients aged 60 years and older with chronic disease were included in the study. Construct validity was evaluated with exploratory factor analysis and criterion validity was evaluated with the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and the test-retest procedure were used to assess the scale reliability. Results: The results of exploratory factor analysis indicated a two-factor solution for the scale that jointly accounted for 67.26% of the variance observed. The criterion validity showed high and significant correlation between ARMS-SF and MMAS-8. Cronbach’s alpha of the total scale was 0.74 and testretest reliability (ICC) within two weeks was greater than 0.80 in all dimensions. Conclusion: The ARMS-SF is reliable and valid for measuring medication adherence among Iranian elders with chronic disease. Further research is required to measure the sensitivity and specificity of the scale.

Keywords

• adherence to refills and medication scale
• chronic disease
• older adult
• reliability
• validity