[Medicine adhesion in eldery people in an ambulatorial attendance]

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the elderly drug adhesion in an outpatient geriatric service linked to the State University Hospital of Campinas (São Paulo, Brazil) as well as to identify the related events to this adhesion. One hundred sixty five elders were submitted to an interview. It was used an instrument to collect information about the patients' identification, besides the self-reported state of health and drug utilization. The data were evaluated through the descriptive and comparative analysis. They showed that most of the elderly (88.5%) have confirmed the drug adhesion and among them 91.1% were living with company. The elderly who were living alone presented three-time more chance of non-adhesion to the drug therapy (OR: 3.655). Those that have referred drug side effects presented seven-time more chance of non-adhesion (OR: 7.092). The associated events which better predict the drug non-adhesion were: "living alone" (OR: 4.346) and "side effects" (OR: 8.219).