Adherence patterns 1 year after initiation of SGLT2 inhibitors: results of a national cohort study.

Objectives: Adherence to medications is important for the management of chronic diseases. Although the proportion of days covered (PDC) is a common metric for measuring adherence, it may be insufficient to distinguish relevant differences in medication-taking behavior. Group-based trajectory models (GBTMs) have been used to better represent adherence over time. This study aims to examine adherence patterns 1 year after initiation among users of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors using GBTMs and evaluate the ability of baseline characteristics to predict adherence trajectory.

Study design: SGLT2 inhibitor new-user cohort study from 2014 to 2018.

Methods: We calculated 12-month PDC and categorized patients with PDC of 80% or greater as adherent. We performed multivariable logistic regression on adherence status controlling for baseline covariates. GBTMs were fit to identify adherence patterns 12 months following SGLT2 inhibitor initiation. Five multinomial logistic regression models including different subsets of predictors were used to predict adherence trajectory group assignment.

Results: In a cohort of 228,363 SGLT2 inhibitor users, the mean PDC was 57%, with 36% of the cohort being adherent. Overall, women and patients with anxiety or depression were less likely to be adherent. Six patterns of SGLT2 inhibitor adherence were identified with GBTMs: 1 fill (PDC = 0.08), early discontinuation (PDC = 0.22), consistently low adherence (PDC = 0.35), moderate adherence (PDC = 0.48), high adherence (PDC = 0.79), and near-perfect adherence (PDC = 0.95). All prediction models showed poor predictive accuracy (0.35).

Conclusions: We found wide variation in adherence patterns among SGLT2 inhibitor users in a national cohort. Predictors from a health care claims database were unable to accurately predict adherence trajectory.