Study between elderly and adults of jequitinhonha valley: treatment adherence and prevalence of comorbidities

The aims of this work are to verify the prevalence of the main comorbidities of the population in the city of Ponto dos Volantes, Minas Gerais; to assess the patients knowledge degree in relation to their diseases; to verify the association between knowledge of comorbidities, schooling, socioeconomic level and adherence to treatment; and to foster volunteering in the UFMG medical students. Eighty-seven patients, males and females, were selected from elderly and adults in the city of Ponto dos Volantes. The data collection was done by students of the Faculty of Medicine of the UFMG, allocated in outpatient clinics in the urban and rural area, during the visits, from July 24th to 29th, 2017. It was verified the adherence through the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS 18, Shapiro-Wilk, Student's T and Mann-Whitney tests. According to the national literature, arterial hypertension (75.3%) and diabetes mellitus (27.1%) are the most prevalent morbidities in the sample. Regarding the knowledge of the prescription and the meaning of the disease, 40.2% of patients did not understand the prescription and 49.4% of them did not understand the disease itself. Although there was no statistically significant difference, we identified low adherence in 24.4% of the elderly and in 14.3% of adults. The study was useful to evaluate the sociodemographic and comorbid profile of the population of Ponto dos Volantes, besides promoting health education and volunteering among students.