Treatment burden as a predictor of self-management adherence within the primary care population.

PURPOSE

We aimed to (1) describe the amount of treatment burden experienced in the primary care population diagnosed with chronic conditions and (2) examine if cumulative and task-specific treatment burden were predictors of medication, exercise, and dietary adherence in patients diagnosed with chronic conditions.

DESIGN

We conducted a prospective, descriptive, cross-sectional study.

METHODS

We enrolled 149 men and women from a single primary care clinic. Participants completed self-report surveys with data collected between September 2019 and December 2019. Our primary statistical analyses consisted of multivariate regression modeling.

RESULTS

The sample experience a moderate amount of treatment burden (M = 38.22; SD = 31.83). We found strong, negative correlations between both cumulative and task-specific burden in relation to medication, exercise, and dietary adherence (p < .001). Significant multivariate models (p < .001), controlling for sample demographics, demonstrated cumulative treatment burden predicted medication adherence, whereas task-specific burden predicted medication, exercise, and dietary adherence outcomes, with model effect sizes ranging from moderate (0.20) to large (0.54).

CONCLUSIONS

Results demonstrate higher levels of cumulative and task-specific treatment burden predict medication, exercise, and dietary adherence within a sample diagnosed with various chronic conditions. These findings indicate the potential for using treatment burden screening in the clinical setting to identify individuals at risk for poor self-management adherence. Treatment burden screening also enables the provider to determine areas of high burden affecting self-management adherence in order to design an effective treatment plan using targeted interventions, resources, or education to reduce patient burden in order to improve adherence.