Assessment of therapeutic compliance and its associated factors in tunisian adult asthmatic patients.

Introduction: Despite therapeutic advances, morbidity attributed to asthma continues to increase. This seems partly to be due to poor adherence.

Aim: To assess therapeutic adherence and the association between poor compliance and asthma control.

Methods: We carried out a descriptive cross-sectional study on a sample of 150 asthmatics, followed in the pneumology department of Charles Nicolle hospital for more than 6 months. The survey took place over 1 month. The 4-item Morisky questionnaire (MMAS-4) was used to assess adherence to therapy.

Results: Our patients had a median age of 44.2 years and a sex ratio of 0.47. Asthma was severe in 48% of cases and poorly controlled in 34% of cases. Adherence was poor in 66% of patients. Factors significantly associated with adherence were educationlevel (p=0.02), socio- economic status (p = 0.01), treatment cost (p= 0.02), its availability (p=0.04) and its free cost (p = 0.001), consultation waiting time (p=0.03) and knowledge on asthma (p=0,04). We retained in multivariate analyze two factors determining therapeutic adherence, which are socio-economic status (OR = 2.02 ; [1.2-6.26]) and participation in the therapeutic choice (OR = 1.2 ; 95% CI [2.02-4.25]).

Conclusions: It appears that medication adherence is widely influenced by socio-economic status. So, improving these conditions would guarantee better treatment compliance.