Significance of noncompliance when treating patients with epilepsy

Introduction: The absence of patient's cooperation when it comes to his/her treatment (“noncompliance”) is typical to chronic diseases and it is significant problem in medical practice. The term “compliance” means patient's capability of strictly adhering to the recommendations concerning the prescribed treatment. The noncompliance with drug regime is frequent case in patients with epilepsy, it is related to increased risk of epileptic seizures’ occurrence and other undesired consequences, including increased costs in the healthcare area. Objective: The objective of our research is assessing the interconnection between compliance with the treatment and social-demographic and clinical factors in patients with epilepsy. Contingent and methods: The research covers 131 consecutively included patients with epilepsy of various social-demographic and clinical characteristics. We have utilized analysis of the medical documentation, anamnesis, study of the somatic and neurological status, self-assessment scales and statistical methods. Results: We established statistically significant positive correlations between the number of patients with poor compliance and the absence of professional/educational occupation, frequency of epileptic seizures, number of the antiepileptic drugs taken during the present and past treatment, the simultaneous presence of poor control of epileptic seizures and adverse drug events being the reason behind the modification of the previous treatment. Conclusion: Patient's poor compliance, the great frequency of seizures, the higher number of antiepileptic drugs and the adverse drug reactions have negative impact on the course of the epileptic disease. The improved compliance results in optimizing the antiepileptic treatment, improving patients’ condition and significantly cutting down costs incurred in the healthcare area.