A systematic review on self-reported questionnaires to assess medication adherence in diabetic patients

Adherence to pharmacological therapies are keys to effective treatments in diabetic patients. Previous reviews found that most adherence measurement studies on chronic diseases used a self-reported scale. However, there is no consensus on the best scale to measure adherence in diabetic patients. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify the potential self-reported scale that could be considered for measuring medication adherence in diabetic patients and to provide recommendations for researchers or clinicians to determine appropriate adherence self-reported scales in diabetic patients. This review follows general guidelines in the implementation of systematic reviews. After further review, it was found that 33 studies met all inclusion criteria from 4 databases (Wiley, Science Direct, Scopus, and PubMed). The articles were done by the PRISMA, while the keywords were determined by the PICO method. Most research was conducted in Asia (69.7) and America (18.2) on patients with type 2 diabetes (81.3), patients in hospitals (54.5), suffering for 1–6 months (54.5), and using a cross-sectional study design (78.8). HbA1c clinic data (57.6) were used in most studies as biological markers of adherence. The measurement scales of medication adherence in diabetic patients are MMAS-8 (57,.5), MMAS-4 (12.1), BMQ (9), MCQ (6), ARMS (3), ARMS-D (3), GMAS (3), LMAS-14 (3), and MARS-5 (3). This review provides information on the different self-reported scales most widely used in diabetic medication adherence research. Various aspects need to be considered before choosing the scale of adherence. © 2021