Self-reported reasons for treatment non-adherence in Chinese asthma patients: A 24-week prospective telephone follow-up study

Treatment non-adherence is a challenge to achieve asthma control. However, few prospective studies were done for exploring asthma patient adherence in real world.

To evaluate treatment adherence and causes of non-adherence in a large asthma Chinese population. To analyze newly-diagnosed patients' adherence first time.

About 1582 asthma patients' data were collected from 12 study centers in China from February, 2012 to October, 2012. Disease and treatment information of subjects were collected were at first clinic visit, at 4, 12, and 24 weeks after that, follow-up phone calls were carried out for recording subjects' treatment adherence based on their self-reports. Subjects who reported non-adherence were additionally asked to choose the primary non-adherence cause from a list of nine potential causes.

Treatment adherence rate of all subjects markedly decreased from 83.3% at week 4 to 42.0% at week 24 after the first clinic visit. Significantly, at week 24, good treatment adherence rate in newly-diagnosed patients was lower than those patients with asthma history (22.9% vs. 63.9%, P < .001). Newly-diagnosed patients were three times more likely to become non-adherence than those patients with asthma history. Female patients had lower treatment adherence rate than male patients (38.3% vs. 45.6%, P = .006). Subjects in 30-39 year age group had the worst treatment adherence (27.3%). The most commonly chosen cause for non-adherence was "relief of symptoms after short-term controller medication use" (43.8%).

Asthma patients' treatment adherence could be improved by improving patient education, doctor/patient partnership, and level of medical service in Chinese population.