Type II diabetic patients' satisfaction, medication adherence, and glycemic control after application of pharmacist counselling program

Background: Health complication with type 2 diabetic mellitus (T2DM) increases as the patient advances in age. This study aims to investigate if the pharmacist counseling program has an impact on patient medication adherence and satisfaction of elderly diabetic patients. Moreover, we aim to investigate the impact of patients’ adherence on HbA1c.

Methods: This is a comparative study was carried out in the diabetic clinic in a governmental hospital at King Saud Hospital, Unaizah city, in Saudi Arabia, over a period of eight months, starting from June 2015. One hundred and two patients were selected to be included in this study. In order to evaluate the adherence and satisfaction, we used Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8) and Diabetes Medication Satisfaction (DiabMedSat) questionnaires, respectively.

Results: The total score pre-MMAS-8 mean was 4.15±0.85. The total mean score for post-MMAS-8 was 5.67±0.51. The level of adherence after the intervention program showed 88.2% patients with low level of adherence and 11.8% patients with moderate level of adherence. The difference between the pre total satisfaction (49.13±11.01) and post total satisfaction (54.45±9.19) was significant (p=0.001).The correlation analysis between medication adherence and HbA1c in present study reveals a non-significant correlation.

Conclusion: The intervention program has improved the medication adherence, satisfaction, and HbA1c level among elderly patients with T2DM. Gender was significantly associated with medication adherence, satisfaction, and HbA1c level. In addition, patient’s education level was significantly associated with medication adherence and satisfaction