Introduction: The medication adherence is a growing concern to clinicians and sets the premises for new studies in the context of the increasing prevalence and incidence of chronic heart failure. Non-adherence to treatment is a global threat, that affects nearly half of the patients with chronic diseases. It is also a leading risk factor for treatment failures, poor outcomes and increased mortality among patients with cardiovascu-lar diseases.
Objective: To assess the magnitude of the problem and to detect the main causes that can lead to poor treat-ment adherence in patients diagnosed with chronic heart failure.
Methods: Our prospective study included 55 patients admitted to The Cardiovascular Diseases Institute, from Iași, in June 2017. The patients were given expli-cit information about the research and expressd their informed consent to participate in the study. The treat-ment adherence was measured using the 8-item Moris-ky medication treatment adherence, lower scores being associated with a higher compliance to treatment.
Results: More than half of the patients included in the study (52%) had a moderately-low adherence to treat-ment. We analysed the Morisky score in relation with different parameters, such as: heart failure stage, the level of education, the place of living, and the age of the patients. The study showed an indirect relationship between the number of drug intakes per day among patients recieving simple or combined medication, but the results cannot be extrapolated to the general popu-lation.
Conclusions: The study showed an indirect relations-hip between Morisky score, the number of drug inta-kes and the severity of left ventricular dysfunction. The age of the patients, the place of living and the level of education did not significantly influence the treatment adherence.