Factors Associated With Adherence To Anti-Epileptic Drugs Among Children With Epilepsy At Tertiary Care Hospital: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Childhood epilepsy causes a tremendous burden for the child, the family, society as well as the healthcare system. Adherence to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is key to treatment success, one of the main causes of unsuccessful treatment for epilepsy is poor adherence to medications. Non-adherence in children with epilepsy presents a potential ongoing challenge for achieving a key therapeutic goal of seizure control. In this study we will assess the level of adherence to AEDs in children and the factor associated with non-adherence.

Methodology: A cross-sectional prospective descriptive design study, conducted in NRIIMS medical College and hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh from December 2021 to May 2022. 60 patients were included in this study who gave written consent and had been taking at least one AEDs for at least 6 months. Only those patients with normal neurological and cognitive development and no other severe comorbidities were included in this study. A structured questionnaire was used to collect relevant information on the adherence of study subjects to AEDs based on self/ caregive report. Part of the questionnaire was derived from Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8).  Data were analysed by using a statistical package for social science software and P<0.05 was considered significant to see association between factors and non-adherence.

Results: The most common reason for non-compliance was the problem with remembering which was seen in 41.8% of the patients. 21.8% of the patients had problems sticking themselves and 18.6% had problems with buying the drugs.

Conclusions: Poor adherence was seen in 31.7%% of our study participants. In our study, patients did not stick to their therapy, buy the drugs or had the problem to remember to take their medication. More efforts are required to scale up the provision of client-centered service (provision of appropriate health care delivery, focus on quality of treatment and providing health education/counseling to improve caregivers’ knowledge and attitude towards epilepsy) to improve children’s adherence status to their medication(s) and seizure control status.