Association of adherence to therapy and complementary and alternative medicine use with demographic factors and disease phenotype in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
OBJECTIVE
Previous studies have suggested an increasing use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Furthermore, a significant number of IBD patients fail to comply with treatment. The aim of our study was to evaluate the prevalence of non-adherence and the use of CAM in Hungarian patients with IBD.


METHODS
A total of 655 consecutive IBD patients (CD: 344, age: 38.2 [SD 12.9]years; UC: 311, age: 44.9 [15.3]years) were interviewed during the specialist visit by self-administered questionnaire including demographic and disease-related data as well as items analyzing the extent of non-adherence and CAM use. Patients taking more than 80% of each prescribed medication were classified as adherent.


RESULTS
The overall rate of self-reported non-adherence (CD: 20.9%, UC: 20.6%) and CAM (CD: 31.7%, UC: 30.9%) use did not differ between Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). The most common causes of non-adherence were: forgetfulness (47.8%), too many/unnecessary pills (39.7%), being afraid of side effects (27.9%) and too frequent dosing. Most common forms of CAM were herbal tea (47.3%), homeopathy (14.6%), special diet (12.2%), and acupuncture (5.8%). In CD, disease duration, date of last follow-up visit, educational level and previous surgeries were predicting factors for non-adherence. Alternative medicine use was associated in both diseases with younger age, higher educational level, and immunosuppressant use. In addition, CAM use in UC was more common in females and in patients with supportive psychiatric/psychological therapy.


CONCLUSIONS
Non-adherence and CAM use is common in patients with IBD. Special attention should be paid to explore the identified predictive factors during follow-up visits to improve adherence to therapy and improving patient-doctor relationship.
1st Department of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary. kislakpet@bel1.sote.hu
Peter Laszlo
PL
Lakatos
Zsofia
Z
Czegledi
Gyula
G
David
Zsofia
Z
Kispal
Lajos S
LS
Kiss
Karoly
K
Palatka
Tunde
T
Kristof
Ferenc
F
Nagy
Agnes
A
Salamon
Pal
P
Demeter
Pal
P
Miheller
Tamas
T
Szamosi
Janos
J
Banai
Maria
M
Papp
Laszlo
L
Bene
Agota
A
Kovacs
Istvan
I
Racz
Laszlo
L
Lakatos
D000328:Adult; D003093:Colitis, Ulcerative / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D000529:Complementary Therapies / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003424:Crohn Disease / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary / Q000453:epidemiology; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D055118:Medication Adherence / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D057240:Patient Preference / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010641:Phenotype; D011446:Prospective Studies; D057566:Self Report; D016903:Drug Monitoring