The causes of non-adherence to methotrexate in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Lack of patients' awareness of drug long-term benefit 8. Because of side effects 9. Results postulated in table 2 revealed the association between adherence to methotrexate and study variables including duration of rheumatoid arthritis, duration of Methotrexate treatment, weekly dose of Methotrexate, Concomitant steroid therapy, use of NSAIDs and Concomitant DMARD among study patients and illustrated that there were significant association between Duration of rheumatoid arthritis, Concomitant steroid therapy and use of NSAIDs with the adherence of patients Furthermore, figure 1 showed the distribution of patients according to adherence to Methotrexate which revealed that the majority (68.9%) of patients have good adherence to Methotrexate treatment. [...]results illustrated in figure 2 showed the distribution of patients that non adherent to Methotrexate according to cause of non-adherence which revealed that the Majority (44.7%) of patients non adherent to Methotrexate had multiple mentioned causes for non-adherence followed by patients did not adhere to MTX because it didn't treat arthritis symptoms (21.1%), social myths (18.4%) and patients' compliance to the treatment after feeling well (13.2%). [...]patients' causes for the nonadherence varied among the population selected but the most common causes for the non-adherence were their thought about the failure of MTX in the treatment of arthritis (65.79%), social myths (63.16%) beside their believes that there were no need for treatment when they become well (57.89%). Each of these causes can cause a non-adherence alone or in combination with other causes whereas other causes my lead to a non-adherence only in combination with others such as the concern about longterm safety, lack of patients awareness of drug long-term benefit, Availability side effects and other less common factors listed in table (3) DISCUSSION: