LEPROSY
Leprosy Review
0305-7518
British Leprosy Relief Association
Colchester, UK
00-282
0305-7518/12/064053+10
10.47276/lr.83.3.282
Original Papers
Assessing and improving adherence with multidrug therapy
D. Weiand et al.
Improving adherence with MDT
ThoulassJanine
bSmithW. Cairns S.
ca
Specialty Trainee in Medical Microbiology, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, UK
b
Clinical Lecturer in Public Health, University of Aberdeen
c
Emeritus Professor of Public Health, University of Aberdeen
Correspondence to: W. Cairns S. Smith, Emeritus Professor of Public Health, School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Aberdeen, Polwarth Building, Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD, Scotland, UK (Tel: +(44) 1224 437266; e-mail: w.c.s.smith@abdn.ac.uk)
01092012
83
3
282
291
10102012
© Lepra
2012
Introduction:
Adherence with multidrug therapy (MDT) in the treatment of leprosy is important to minimise the risk of relapse and avoid the emergence of drug resistance. Adherence is defined as the extent to which the patient’s behaviour matches recommendations from the prescriber. This paper reviews the methods for assessing adherence with MDT in leprosy, and community approaches to improving adherence based on evidence from the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV, as well as leprosy.
Methods:
To identify and summarise the available literature regarding the assessment of treatment regularity in leprosy, a literature search of MEDLINE was conducted using the following search terms: ‘leprosy’ AND (‘adherence’ OR ‘compliance’ OR ‘concordance’). To identify evidence for interventions that have involved community members in HIV, TB or leprosy adherence support, a literature search was conducted using the key terms and medical subject headings ‘treatment or adherence’ ‘community,’ ‘HIV, TB or Leprosy’ and ‘low and middle income countries’ combined using Boolean operators.
Results:
Leprosy programmes routinely use defaulting and treatment completion as proxy measures of adherence as recommended by the WHO global strategy. However, a number of other methods have been used to assess adherence including questionnaires, pill counts, as well as direct measures based on testing urine for the presence of dapsone. Direct methods were extensively used during the dapsone mono-therapy era but there is little evidence of their use in MDT. Use of multiple methods of assessing adherence improves the accuracy and reliability of the results. Community activities in TB and HIV such as variants of treatment observation, and/or wider programmes of counselling or direct support to the patient or their family or to increase community or social support were shown to improve treatment outcomes. Outcomes evaluated included treatment default and completion, clinical indicators, and adherence (pill-count, self report).
Conclusions:
Adherence is very important in leprosy and regular assessment of medication adherence together with constructive feedback and counselling of patients is likely to be beneficial. Leprosy programme can learn from adherence support interventions developed by both TB and HIV programmes.