[Validity of 6 indirect methods in the evaluation of compliance to drug treatment of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus].
OBJECTIVE
To validate six indirect methods for evaluation of therapy compliance with oral hypoglycemic agents: self-reported compliance, attendance to scheduled visits, Morisky-Green test, degree of disease control, medical judgement and level of knowledge on the disease.


METHODS
The certainty method used was pill counts at patient's home by surprise with a sample of 107 randomly selected patients from three Primary Care Centers in the province of Alicante.


RESULTS
SV was the method with the highest specificity (94.2%), likelihood of low compliance (84.2%) and percentage of likelihood of low compliance (5.1). DC assessed by basal blood glucose had the highest sensitivity (81.8%) and DC assessed by glycoxylated hemoglobin the highest likelihood of high compliance (61.1%).


CONCLUSIONS
In this study, SV and DC with basal blood glucose were the highest validity indicators and could be used combined in clinical practice to evaluate compliance with oral hypoglycemic agents.
Piñeiro Chousa
F
F
Departamento de Medicina, Universidad de Alicante.
Gil Guillén
V F
VF
Donis Otero
M
M
Orozco Beltrán
D
D
Pastor López
R
R
Merino Sánchez
J
J
D000368:Aged; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000032:analysis; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000097:blood / Q000188:drug therapy*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006442:Glycated Hemoglobin / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010349:Patient Compliance; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011897:Random Allocation
D001786:Blood Glucose; D006442:Glycated Hemoglobin; D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents