Poor medication adherence in patients with psoriasis and a successful intervention

Background: The medication adherence of psoriasis patients may be influenced by a series combined internal and external factors. Effective methods for improving adherence could improve treatment outcomes. Objective: To characterize medication adherence in psoriasis patients in China and to test an intervention to improve psoriasis patients' adherence. Methods: We investigated 200 patients with psoriasis using questionnaires to determine their medication adherence and the factors that influence adherence. In 117 patients, low medication adherence was identified; we randomized 96 of these patients into intervention group and control groups. The intervention group received health education during 6-month therapy. One-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) was used to analyze the influence factors of medication adherence to further obtain the variables. Logistic regression was used to analyze these data. Results: Adherence of psoriasis patients was poor (41.5%). Factors associated with adherence included sociological characteristics, disease characteristics, medicine type, the cognitive level toward psoriasis, care indicators, and social environment. Patients in the intervention group exhibited greater adherence improvement (83.7%) compared with the control group (6.4%). Conclusions: Medication adherence of the psoriasis patients is poor but can be improved by a health education intervention.