Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Assessment of the relationship between depression and treatment compliance in chronically-ill patients in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Ameen Mosleh Almohammadi , Somayah Saeed Bawazeer, Joud Jamal Balkhair, Aroub Adel Rajab

Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, King Abdulaziz University, PO Box 80260, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia;

For correspondence:- Ameen Almohammadi Email: yahmadi@taibahu.edu.sa Tel:+966504378234

Accepted: 23 December 2020 Published: 31 January 2021

Citation: Almohammadi AM, Bawazeer SS, Balkhair JJ, Rajab AA. Assessment of the relationship between depression and treatment compliance in chronically-ill patients in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(1):177-182 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i1.25

© 2021 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To find the relationship between depression, treatment adherence and lifestyle changes in chronically-ill patients residing in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from patients of multi-healthcare centers located in Jeddah. The questionnaire aimed to collect the information regarding patients’ levels of medication compliance, patients’ capacity to cope with the disease and adherence to medication, along with their depression level.

Results: Of the overall sample size of 439 patients, 43.1 % were suffering from hypertension, 37.8 % were diabetic and 33.7 % had hyperlipidemia. Besides, total scores of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) showed that approximately 5 % patients were severely depressed, 8 % had moderately severe depression, 27 % had moderate depression, and 60 % had mild depression. Compliance scale data revealed that 38 % patients showed low compliance, 51 % showed partial compliance, and 11 % showed high compliance. Also, a significant inverse relationship between depression and compliance scales (rs = -0.221, p = 0.004) was observed.

Conclusion: The results show an inverse association between depression and medication adherence in patients with chronic disease in Jeddah. Therefore, clinicians are advised to assess the level of depression in chronically-ill patients in order to improve their adherence to medicine.

Keywords: Chronic illness, Depression, Medication adherence, Treatment compliance