TY - JOUR
T1 - Medication adherence in patients with rheumatoid arthritis
T2 - the effect of patient education, health literacy, and musculoskeletal ultrasound
AU - Joplin, Samantha
AU - Van Der Zwan, Rick
AU - Joshua, Fredrick
AU - Wong, Peter K.K.
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2015. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Background. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease affecting <1% of the population. Incompletely controlled RA results in fatigue, joint and soft tissue pain, progressive joint damage, reduced quality of life, and increased cardiovascular mortality. Despite an increasing range of disease modifying agents which halt disease progression, poor patient adherence with medication is a significant barrier to management. Objective. The goal of this review was to examine the effectiveness of measures to improve patient medication adherence. Methods. Studies addressing treatment adherence in patients with RA were identified by trawling PsycINFO, Medline, Cochrane, Pubmed, and ProQuest for studies published between January 2000 and October 2014. Articles were independently reviewed to identify relevant studies. Results. Current strategies were of limited efficacy in improving patient adherence with medications used to treat RA. Conclusion. Poor medication adherence is a complex issue. Low educational levels and limited health literacy are contributory factors. Psychological models may assist in explaining medication nonadherence. Increasing patient knowledge of their disease seems sensible. Existing educational interventions appear ineffective at improving medication adherence, probably due to an overemphasis on provision of biomedical information. A novel approach to patient education using musculoskeletal ultrasound is proposed.
AB - Background. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease affecting <1% of the population. Incompletely controlled RA results in fatigue, joint and soft tissue pain, progressive joint damage, reduced quality of life, and increased cardiovascular mortality. Despite an increasing range of disease modifying agents which halt disease progression, poor patient adherence with medication is a significant barrier to management. Objective. The goal of this review was to examine the effectiveness of measures to improve patient medication adherence. Methods. Studies addressing treatment adherence in patients with RA were identified by trawling PsycINFO, Medline, Cochrane, Pubmed, and ProQuest for studies published between January 2000 and October 2014. Articles were independently reviewed to identify relevant studies. Results. Current strategies were of limited efficacy in improving patient adherence with medications used to treat RA. Conclusion. Poor medication adherence is a complex issue. Low educational levels and limited health literacy are contributory factors. Psychological models may assist in explaining medication nonadherence. Increasing patient knowledge of their disease seems sensible. Existing educational interventions appear ineffective at improving medication adherence, probably due to an overemphasis on provision of biomedical information. A novel approach to patient education using musculoskeletal ultrasound is proposed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929346572&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1155/2015/150658
DO - 10.1155/2015/150658
M3 - Review article
C2 - 26060812
AN - SCOPUS:84929346572
SN - 2314-6133
VL - 2015
SP - 1
EP - 10
JO - BioMed Research International
JF - BioMed Research International
M1 - 150658
ER -