Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences

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MEDICATION-RELATED BURDEN AMONG IRAQI HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS

SHAYMAA A. HUSEIN 1*, DHEYAA J. KADHIM 2

1Renal Transplant Centre, Baghdad Medical City, Baghdad, Iraq.
2Clinical Pharmacy Department, College of Pharmacy, University of Baghdad, Iraq.

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Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a condition of chronic kidney function decline, that is progressive and irreversible. Treating end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) related complications puts a considerable burden on the patients. The current study aimed to determine the magnitude of perceived medication-related burden (MRB) among haemodialysis (HD) patients and its association with different sociodemographic and clinical factors. The present study was conducted at two different HD centres in Baghdad hospitals from December 2022 to May 2023. The Living with Medicine questionnaire (LMQ) was used to explore the MRB experienced by HD patients. The study recruited 200 adult patients, 117 men (58.5%) and 83 women (41.5%). The average age of the patients was 54.5 ± 15.1 years old. The mean of the total LMQ score was 105.97 (± 12.24). In addition, (57.5%) of the HD patients experienced a minimum degree of MRB, followed by moderate (41.5%) and high burdens (1.0%). Three MRB domains showed the highest scores: “cost-related burden”, “impact of using medicines in daily life” and “autonomy to vary regimen”. Patients who had more comorbid diseases had significantly higher MRB. On the other hand, patients who had longer years of disease duration had significantly lower MRB. In conclusion, the findings suggest that all patients on HD experienced varying degrees of MRB; however, the majority of them had a minimum to moderate MRB. Future interventional studies should concentrate on HD patients to lower MRB.