Drug Adherence Among Children Presenting for Routine Cardiac Clinic Follow Up at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital
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Date
2022-03-16
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
1.1 Study design
To address the objective of this study, a cross-sectional study will be conducted.
1.2 Problem statement
Adherence to medications is a prevalent problem in children with chronic diseases.
Congenital and acquired cardiac conditions are among the common chronic diseases in
children. Adherence to prescribed medications among children suffering from cardiac
diseases is a worldwide problem. Lack of adherence to prescribed medications is
associated with adverse outcomes such as high mortality rates, increased
hospitalization, poor quality of life and increased healthcare costs. Therefore, it is
important for healthcare workers to recognize and address adherence problems to
ensure children are getting optimal health care. There is paucity of data on drug
adherence among children attending routine cardiac flow clinic at QECH. Hence, this
study will generate preliminary data that will bench mark drug adherence issues among
children at cardiac clinic
1.3 Rationale and justification
Drug adherence problems pause a big challenge in children with chronic illness. Poor
drug adherence is associated with substantial increase in morbidity and mortality rates
as well as health care costs. Despite the devastating effects of poor drug adherence,
very few studies have been done to address this problem. Furthermore, it is argued that
research touching on adherence is mainly done in major non communicable diseases
and other chronic conditions such as; asthma, HIV/AIDS, diabetes mellitus, and
attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) unlike in children with cardiac
conditions which also carry a high lifetime risk of morbidity and mortality Therefore,
it is important to assess drug adherence in children in order to generate data that can
inform policy as well as improve rational drug use in children at Queen Elizabeth
Central hospital.
1.4 Objectives
The main objective of this study is to assess factors associated with drug adherence
among children presenting for routine paediatric cardiac clinic at Queen Elizabeth
central hospital.
1.5 Methodology
The study will be conducted at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital paediatric cardiac
clinic. 65 children aged 6 months-18 years will be recruited after obtaining informed
consent from the legal guardian and assent from eligible children respectively. Tools to
be used to measure adherence rate and level include; self-reported questionnaire and
visual analogue scale. Data entry and analysis will be done at college of medicine soon
after data collection and this will be done using Microsoft excel and Stata software.
Descriptive data analysis will be conducted where continuous variables will be
summarized as mean and standard deviation. Frequencies and proportions will be
computed for categorical variables. Regression analysis will be carried out to
summarize possible relationships between the rate of drug adherence and predictor
variables. The level of significance will be set at 0.05
1.6 Expected findings
Low adherence rate among children presenting for routine cardiac clinic at Queen
Elizabeth Central Hospital and the risk factors associated with them.
1.7 Results dissemination
Upon completion of our study, the project report copies will be distributed to the
College of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee (COMREC); the Undergraduate
Research Projects Coordinator, Kamuzu University of Healthy Sciences (KUHes)
Library, and to the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital Management. Other copies of the
study will also be distributed to the Paediatric Department at Queen Elizabeth Central
Hospital from where the study will be conducted. The results will further be submitted
to a peer-reviewed journal for publication
Description
Keywords
Treatment adherence in children with cardiac problems