Poor Adherence to Inhaler Therapy in Patients with Bronchial Asthma : Rates and Causes

Objective: To assess adherence rates to inhaler therapy in bronchial asthma patients, and to find out the most common causes of non-adherence. Method: prospective study of 295 patients diagnosed to have bronchial asthma in King Hussein Medical Center (KHMC) in the period between March 2014 and January 2015. Patients were followed up for 15 weeks, after which adherence to their inhaler therapy was assessed, and the causes of nonadherence were investigated. Results: It was found that 138 patients from the 295 patients included in our study were non-adherent to their inhaler therapy, which equals 47% of the patients in this study. The most common cause for non-adherence was the patients’ fear that using inhalers would be habit forming, and would be associated with a social stigma. This cause accounted for 46% of the causes for non-adherence in our study group. Conclusion: Non-adherence rates to inhaler therapy in bronchial asthma were shown to be significant in our study. The fact that the most common causes for non-adherence in our study were found to be due to non-drug related causes, and mainly caused by poor patient understanding of their condition and treatment, makes patient’s education very important, and emphasizes the significance of doctorpatient communication to answer all the questions that might cause non-adherence to inhalers.