Abstract

Background: Strategies implemented around the globe to face COVID-19 pandemic raised some challenges in ensuring care continuity and might have impacted Patient Medication adherence which is crucial for patients with chronic neurologic diseases.

Methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study with a total of 83 patients with chronic neurological conditions. Data was collected through a directed questionnaire using Medication Adherence Reasons Scale. We have also compared levels of treatment adherence according to sociodemographic characteristics. To our knowledge, this is the first study conducted in Morocco aiming to assess patient medication adherence in Neurology.

Results: The mean age in our study was 55,4 ± 19.2, Women represented 44,6%. Our study found 59% of nonadherence versus 41% of full medication adherence. The main reported reasons for treatment discontinuation were the patient’s inability to ride to the pharmacy (24.5%), financial reasons (22.4%), social reasons (20.4%), side effects occurrence (16.3%), perception of the medication as unnecessary or ineffective (both 14,3 %). We found a correlation between socio-economic level and medication adherence (p = 0.023). Interestingly, COVID-19 pandemic was cited as the main factor standing behind 18 patients answers.

World Health Organization estimates overall poor adherence to 50%, our results were even higher. Noteworthy, the correlation highlighted between socio-economic level and medication adherence could be the reflection of a growing socio-economic divide. Furthermore, COVID-19 pandemic might be an aggravating factor of nonadherence probably because of the difficult access to healthcare facilities, lockdown, overall context of anxiety, economic impact of the outbreak, and possible shortage in drugs.

Conclusion: The already poor observance highlighted by our study will probably worsen after COVID-19 pandemic and its expected impact on national economy.

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; SARS-COV 2; Patient Medication Adherence; Neurology; Low-Middle Income Countries

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Citation

Citation: Asmaa Hazim., et al. “Medication Adherence of Patients with Neurological Conditions in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic: Is there an Impact?". Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 5.1 (2021): 59-64.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Asmaa Hazim., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.