Abstract
Epilepsy is a common disease, affecting about 65 million people in the world, accounting for 1% of the global burden of disease. Many aspects are affected such as: Economic, social and especially the quality of life. Some researches have shown that the quality of life of people with epilepsy is much lower than that of healthy people. Treatment of epilepsy is necessary. However, epilepsy treatment is difficult with a high rate of seizure recurrence. One of the important causes of seizure recurrence is the medication non-adherence that even making the disease more difficult to control.
Objective: Describe the characteristics of medication adherence in epilepsy patients at the Bach Mai neurology center and analyze some related factors.
Subjects and methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study on patients who were diagnosed and treated for outpatient epilepsy, came for follow-up examination at the neurology center of Bạch Mai hospital. Patient classification based on medication adherence characteristics and patients beliefs about drug use, through MMAS-8 scale and BMQ scale.
Results: Out of 193 patients, 80.5% of them often had difficulty remembering to take medication, 11.4% felt bothered when adhering to treatment. 0% of patients achieved a high level of compliance, 27.5% at average level and 72.5% at low level).
Conclusion: The majority of patients have a moderate level of knowledge about epilepsy, with most of them understanding that epilepsy can be cured, the available treatment methods, and the necessity of adhering to medication. However, they also recognize the serious issue of using stimulants. Despite this, none of the patients achieved a high level of adherence, with most showing low adherence to treatment, primarily due to occasionally forgetting to take their medication.