Thromboembolism in Arthroplasty: Compliance to Prophylaxis

Objective  The present paper aims to identify the profile of compliance to thromboembolism drug prophylaxis in patients undergoing knee or hip arthroplasty at a public hospital. Methods  This is a prospective cohort study, carried out from August 2017 to September 2018, with adult patients who were followed-up from admission until the postoperative period. The Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, consisting of eight items, was applied. Compliance was quantified according to the sum of all correct answers as high (8 points), medium (6 to < 8 points), and low compliance (< 6 points). For the present study, subjects with high compliance were referred as highly compliant, whereas those with medium to low compliance were referred as partially compliant. Results  The compliance analysis showed that 73.0% of the patients were highly compliant and 27.0% were partially compliant to thromboprophylaxis. The anticoagulant prescribed at hospital discharge was rivaroxaban, a direct factor Xa inhibitor. Compliance was greater in patients who did not require reinforcement in prophylaxis guidance during follow-up; these subjects reported good and excellent acceptance of prophylaxis, although they were on multiple medications at discharge. Conclusion  The data analysis allowed us to conclude that the factors that most influenced compliance were the levels of understanding and acceptance of prophylaxis by the patients, the amount of medication used per day by the subject, the cost of the anticoagulant agent, and its potential to cause adverse reactions.