S de Achavel, ME Suarez-Almazor. Treatment adherence to disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. International Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, 2010;5:313-326.

Treatment adherence is critical in the management of rheumatic diseases. Recent advances in therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are promising, although the impact on quality of life may be limited due to nonadherence. Databases including Ovid Medline, Scopus and the Epub-ahead-of-print subset of PubMed were searched for the period of the last 10 years using combined keywords patient compliance, medication adherence, disease modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD), rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic lupus erythematosus. Additional references from retrieved papers were considered. Inclusion criteria were the following: identification of a quantitative measure of adherence to medications including DMARDs and biologics; inclusion of well-defined measures of adherence; and patients with RA or SLE. Studies in RA and SLE patients demonstrated overall inadequate treatment adherence. Adherence was measured using multiple methods including pharmacy records, electronic monitoring, self-report and physician report. The evidence for interventions to improve treatment adherence was limited and demonstrated various results.

WHAT THE STUDY MAY MEAN TO YOU AS A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER: The authors concluded that future research should further explore determinants of nonadherence and continue to examine the efficacy of implementing various strategies to improve medication management in this patient population.

WHAT THE STUDY MAY MEAN TO YOU AS A HEALTH CARE CONSUMER:
As both arthritis and lupus patients must be adherent to their medical regimens, the study provides a great starting point for people in that area. It requires the application of self-management skills, particularly in improving adherence.