Patient noncompliance with therapeutic regimens and the factors of noncompliance in Gondar

Noncompliance with drug treatment regimens is one of the many interacting factors which determine the outcome of therapy. This study was designed to emphasize the problem of non compliance with short-term medications. Five hundred ninety seven patients were randomly selected for a prospective study. Indirect methods such as patient interview and pill-count were employed for an assessment of compliance. The overall compliance rate was 73.9%, and the remaining 26.1% of the patients failed to comply with clinical prescriptions. Regardless of the status of compliance (compliant or non- compliant), an improvement of the illness was recorded in 73.2% of the patients. The remaining 26.8% of the patients had no change in the progress of their illnesses as subjectively assessed by the patients themselves. There is a significant association between the outcome of therapy and compliance (p<0.01). The factors of noncompliance which have been reported by the noncompliant patients include non-redemption of drugs (32.7%) forgetfulness (18%), occurrence of adverse effects (16%), misunderstanding of dosing instruction or lack of instruction (13.5%), failure in the progress of the illness (8.3%), improvement of the illness (7.7%), and others (3.8%). The importance of compliance from both the medical and the economical points of view and strategies towards improving compliance are discussed. (Ethiopian Journal of Health Development: 2000, 14(1): 1-6)