Family support and medication adherence among adult type 2 diabetes: Any meeting point?

Background: Serious disability diabetes mellitus (DM) cause for patients and their support system-family and friends are enormous. It remains an important public health challenge, despite effective medical therapies for its management; patients' poor adherence remains a global problem.

Objective: The study assessed the relationship between family support and medication adherence among adult Type 2 DM (T2DM) attending family medicine clinic of a rural tertiary hospital.

Methodology: This was an analytic cross-sectional hospital-based study carried out among 367 patients selected by systematic random sampling method. Relevant data collected through a semi-structured questionnaire and clinical data recorded and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) were utilized for the study. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.

Results: The mean (standard deviation) age of respondents was 61.7 ± 11.4 years. Those with strong family support that achieved medium/high (Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 > 6) level of medication adherence (odds ratio [OR] [95% confidence interval (CI)] = 1 6.4 [9.1-29.6], P < 0.001) constituted 69.5% of respondents. Family support was also found to have a direct relationship to glycemic control (FPG < 7.1 mmol/l), 65.7% of those with strong family support achieved good glycemic control, P < 0.001, OR (95% CI) = 17.4 (9.2-37.2). The level of medication adherence was noted to be directly related to glycemic control, 79.4% of those with medium/high medication adherence had good glycemic control, OR (95% CI) = 25.0 (14.4-43.6), P < 0.001. Strong family support leads to higher medication adherence level which resulted into better glycemic control.

Conclusion: Family support improves medication adherence and glycemic control. Physicians should explore patients' family support system to improve medication adherence level and better management outcome of chronic diseases especially T2DM.