THE STUDY OF THE CORRELATION BETWEEN MEDICATION ADHERENCE AND QUALITY OF LIFE OF RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS PATIENTS

Background and aims: Patient adherences with therapeutic regimens reduce the severity of desease negative complications and its non-adherence as a barrier to achieving the medical. The aim at this study was to determine the correlation between medication adherence and quality of life of Rheumatoid Arthritis patients in Shariati hospital in 2016. Methods: This study was descriptive-correlational that population consisted of all Arthritis patients in Shariati hospital in Tehran. 252 patients were recruited by convenience sampling. Three questionnaires were used to collect data including the demographic characteristics questionnaire, the medication adherence “CQR” and SF-36. The validity and reliability of SF-36 in similar studies and the validity and reliability of CQR by researcher was approved. Data were analyzed by SPSS. Results: The results showed the levels of medication adherence with an average of 65.86±5.85 and the quality of life of patients with an average of 51.96±9.73. Spearman correlation coefficient showed that no significant correlation between medication adherence and quality of life of patients (P=0.663, r=0.02). Medication adherence had a significant correlation between energy/fatigue subscales of quality of life (P=0.035, r=0.13). Conclusion: Due to the fact that medication adherence was not a predictor of quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis Therefore, it cannot be poured programs for these patients to improve their quality of life due to medication adherence.