Anti-epileptic drugs adherence of epilepsy patients in Indonesia

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Background: Adherence to medication is an important component of successful epilepsy treatment. However, the disease’s long-term treatment makes it difficult to achieve good adherence. This study aimed to assess the adherence level of anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) among adult epilepsy patients in Indonesia and its associated factors.Methods: We reviewed the medical records of epilepsy patients in a tertiary public hospital between September 2018 and August 2019. Subjects were patients who were electro-clinically diagnosed with any type of epilepsy, have been taken at least one AED for at least three months, have a record of Morisky medication adherence scale 8 items (MMAS-8) score, and aged 20 years old and above. The level of adherence was measured by the MMAS-8 Indonesian version.Results: We found 97 eligible subjects and the majority were males (56.7%), unemployed (69.1%), and aged ≥30 years old (55.7%). Most subjects (41.2%) showed a high adherence level. The remaining 30.9% and 27.8% had a moderate and low adherence level respectively.Conclusions: This study reveals that high AEDs adherence is associated with being male, younger than 30 years of age, received monotherapy instead of polytherapy, and no memory impairment. A further investigation related to the reason why these factors play roles in the Indonesian setting is important to design appropriate strategies to improve AEDs adherence of epilepsy patients.