Adherence to therapy in rheumatology practice. Literature review

Abstract

The problem of adherence to therapy continues to be one of the most significant for modern medicine. The aim of the work was to analyze the literature data on adherence to therapy in rheumatological practice. Currently, various definitions of adherence to therapy are used: «compliance», «adherence», «concordance». Despite significant progress in the creation of new highly effective pathogenetic drugs in rheumatology, the effectiveness of the prescribed therapy remains insufficiently satisfactory. Often this situation is associated with low adherence to treatment. In the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with disease modifying drugs, adherence made up about 65%. In osteoarthritis, there was a decrease in adherence not only to drug therapy, but also to other methods of conservative treatment. An increase in fracture risk by 16% was found in those osteoporotic patients who had poor adherence to treatment. When treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, the risk of adverse events from the upper gastrointestinal tract in patients with low adherence to therapy with proton pump inhibitors increased 4.0 times. The rate of progression of the disease, the degree of functional disorders and the level of patients’ life quality depend on the level of adherence to treatment.

Keywords

• adherence to therapy
• rheumatoid arthritis
• osteoarthritis
• osteoporosis
• proton pump inhibitors
• compliance