Two-year adherence to treatment and associated factors in a fracture liaison service in Spain

A fracture liaison service in Spain is able to maintain 73 % of the patients on antiresorptive 2 years after the fracture.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the 2-year effectiveness of a program for the secondary prevention of fractures.

Fragility fractures in patients over 50 attending the emergency room in our centre are captured by the recruitment system of a secondary prevention program. The unit is attended by a nurse, coordinated by two rheumatologists and with the collaboration of primary care consisted of a training program and annual meetings. The outcome of the program was analysed 2 years after implementation, including: (1) percentage of attendees/eligible; (2) percentage of attendees who start treatment with antiresorptive; (3) percentage of patients who retain treatment after 6, 12, 18 and 24 months; and (4) factors associated to adherence.

After 2 years of implementation, the program detected 1674 patients with fracture, of whom 759 finally entered the program (57 % of eligible). After 3 months, 82 % of patients prescribed an antiresorptive started treatment. After a year, 52 % of the patients in the program, 72 % of those of a prescribed treatment, were taking antiresorptives. Adherence at 24 months among those who had prescribed anti-fracture drugs was 73 %. Factors associated with adherence at 12 months were female sex (76 vs 45 %; p = 0.01) and previous treatment with antiresorptive (86 vs 68 %; p = 0.02).

In Spain, a program designed to prevent secondary fragility fractures based on the collaboration between primary care and rheumatology seems effective in terms of recruitment of patients and adherence to treatment in the mid/long-term.