Trajectories of adherence in IBD

What is it about?

Greenley and colleagues set out to identify longitudinal patterns of adherence in youth with IBD. They also wished to identify and examine the role of disease- and medication-related factors associated with adherence. Findings revealed two discrete trajectories of adherence. First, approximately 58% of the sample demonstrated consistent, near perfect rates of adherence over the six-month monitoring period. Second, approximately 42% of youth displayed mild rates of nonadherence, and difficulties with adherence worsened over time. Additionally, no disease-related factors (e.g., disease activity, time since diagnosis) were associated with adherence. However, daily dose quantity emerged as a medication-related factor positively associated with adherence.

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Photo by Frank Flores on Unsplash

Photo by Frank Flores on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The measurement of adherence poses many challenges and no gold standard exists to date. Most research has utilized cross-sectional, retrospective, and self-report measures of adherence. The current study sought to address these gaps by measuring adherence longitudinally, which enabled them to identify patterns of adherence over time; prospectively, which eliminated concerns related to recall bias; and objectively (via MEMs caps), to address issues related to subjective measures of adherence. Lastly, these results replicated patterns of adherence than have been documented in other pediatric populations (e.g., epilepsy; Modi et al., 2011), thus expanding our knowledge to a new disease group.