[The relationship of the compliance with medical drug treatment to social and functional factors and to the cognitive status of the elderly population seeking care].
OBJECTIVE
We try to relate the compliance to sociodemographic factors as well as with the cognitive, functional and sensorial status; and with characteristics of the medication to take.


METHODS
Descriptive, cross-sectional study with a month observational window. SITE: Our primary care health district.


METHODS
We admitted elders who came to our primary care set, aged 70 or more, random-selected and stratified for age and sex. We exclude those who were travellers in our district and those included in home-care program.


RESULTS
We measured medication compliance using pill counts, in those medicines in regular regime for a month or more. We measured as compliance index a mean of the deviation of the different adherence index from one, scoring good adherence when that index was < or = 0.1. Non-compliance was mainly related to cognitive impairment (p = 0.0008).


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with poor functional status are at high potential risk coming from polypharmacy. We need much medication control and compliance assessment in these patients.
O'Dogherty Caramé
P
P
EAP Las Margaritas, Getafe, Madrid.
Morell Sixto
E
E
Molero Portolés
D
D
Martínez Alvaro
C
C
Martín Sanjuán
C
C
López Morán
S
S
D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019954:Neurobehavioral Manifestations; D010349:Patient Compliance; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013030:Spain; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric