title: [Improving treatment adherence in kidney transplantation: a major challenge].
abstract: The kidney transplant recipient is faced not only with the perspective of taking immunosuppressive drugs lifelong, but also the possibility of other long-term treatments prescribed for preexisting conditions, complications, or side effects. Proper management, and most importantly patient adherence, can become a complex challenge. Here we recall current definitions and describe methods for measuring treatment adherence, followed by a discussion on the prevalence of non-adherence in kidney transplant recipients, its effect on graft survival, and factors predictive of non-adherence. Ways of improving adherence are examined, leading to the conviction that helping patients take their medications regularly would probably have a greater impact on graft survival than marketing a new immunosuppressive agent.
authors.affiliation: Service de néphrologie dialyse transplantation, hôpitaux de Brabois, centre hospitalier universitaire de Nancy, 54500 Vandœuvre-Lès-Nancy, France. Electronic address: m.kessler@chu-nancy.fr.
authors.forename: Michèle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kessler
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D055118:Medication Adherence
chemical_list: D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents
keywords: Adherence; Adhésion; Compliance; Kidney transplantation; Observance; Transplantation rénale