Association between medication adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes with their quality of life: A cross-sectional study

Background: Assess the impact of medication adherence on quality of life (QOL) in patients with type 2 diabetes in different setting and societies, can be considered as a great clinical importance. Therefore, this study was designed for evaluation of association between medication adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes with their QOL.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 279 diabetic type 2 positive cases referred to Endocrinology clinic in Hamadan City at the first six months of 2020. The short-form health survey SF-36 and MMAS-8 questionnaire was used for assessing health related QOL and medication adherence of patients, respectively. Correlations between each QOL domain with medication adherence were tested with Pearson's r coefficient.Results: Among investigated patients, 154 (55.2%) of them were male and vast majority were urban dweller (91.07%). The number of 101 patients (36.07%) had high treatment adherence. We found a significant and positive correlation between medication adherence and domains of emotional wellbeing, social functioning, general health and total score of QOL (P>0.05). While there was a significant negative correlation between medication adherence and role limitations due to physical health (r=-0.14, P=0.02).Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, diabetic patients with poor QOL may have less medication adherence, then such patients should be integrated e.g. in self-care education programs and reinforcement interventions to improve QOL and medication adherence.