Session Speaker

The Utility of a Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS) in Assessing Medication Compliance among Qatari: Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM)
Nadir Kheir

So far there is no accepted "Gold Standard" to objectively assess compliance with drug therapy. Strategies that use information from patients include self-reporting, pill-counting and the use of Medication Event Monitoring System, or MEMS® (a computerized device attached with the medicine bottles given to patients). To our knowledge, the latter method had not been tested in the Gulf country region. To assess the usefulness of the MEMS® in assessing compliance. A sample of adult diabetic Qatari patients attending an outpatient diabetic clinic were administered a Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) questionnaire and then dispensed one of their regular medications in a MEMS®-fitted bottle. Data contained in the MEMS® were downloaded after the patients returned for a refill and compliance was estimated using 2 methods: pill count and MEMS® data. Compliance with daily doses was 67.7% and with regimen 13.7%. No correlation was found between compliance assessed by pill count and MEMS®. There were significant correlations between some of the KAP domains. The association between KAP and compliance was generally poor. The study helped uncovering problems associated with the use of MEMS® and that could affect its usefulness and validity in assessing compliance in this part of the world.