Importance of Patients' Knowledge of Their Prescribed Medication in Improving Treatment Adherence in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Goals: To investigate the association between treatment nonadherence and patients' knowledge of the prescribed medication among individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and evaluate the impact of nonadherence on relapse.

Background: The patient's knowledge of the prescribed medication has been identified as an important predictor of treatment adherence in chronic diseases. However, this association has not been examined in IBD.

Study: In this prospective study, at baseline, 138 patients with IBD completed a self-reported survey on demographic data, knowledge of the prescribed medication, and candidate factors related to the degree of treatment adherence. To investigate the impact of nonadherence among patients in remission, relapse was analyzed for 18 months after enrollment.

Results: Nonadherence was observed in 50 (36.2%) of the 138 subjects. In multivariate analysis, nonadherence was significantly associated with younger age (less than 30 y) at participation [odds ratio (OR), 5.88; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.51-22.94; P=0.011], longer intervals between outpatient clinic visits (≥3 mo) (OR, 30.31; 95% CI, 3.06-300.17; P=0.004), and limited knowledge of the prescribed medication (OR, 5.61; 95% CI, 1.60-19.67; P=0.038). Nonadherent patients had a significantly greater risk of relapse of IBD than adherent patients (relative risk, 2.9; 95% CI, 2.25-3.79; P=0.045).

Conclusion: Younger age, longer intervals between outpatient clinic visits, and limited knowledge of the prescribed medication tended to be associated with nonadherence to treatment, which consequently also affects the risk of relapse.