Adherence to CF treatment can be improved with the right approach

The burden of routine, daily therapies prescribed for people with cystic fibrosis (CF) is large. Maintaining adherence to such chronic therapies can be challenging, especially when the financial costs are considerable and they are time consuming, though non-adherence is associated with poor health outcomes.1 Therefore, efforts to improve adherence in people with CF are important, as reflected by the recent global James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership exercise where finding ways to help people with CF to ‘improve and sustain adherence to treatment’ was identified as a priority for the CF community.2 Factors influencing adherence are complex. Non-adherence can be intentional or non-intentional. Patient-related factors include individuals’ understanding of their disease, beliefs about the effectiveness of specific treatments and side effects,3 and the presence or absence of good medication routines.4 External factors that affect adherence include complexity of dosing regimens, cultural factors and the cost of treatments. For people with CF, the reality of living with a chronic disease and having to adhere to complicated treatment regimens inevitably competes with other …