Objectives: Non-adherence to biologic therapy is an issue in chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases (CIRDs) and might be related to poor patient knowledge of the risk of these therapies. Our aim here was to evaluate the level of patient adherence to and knowledge of self-care safety skills for biologic therapy.
Methods: This was a multicentre, cross-sectional study in which out-patients visited an office- or hospital-based rheumatologist. All the patients received subcutaneous biologic therapy for CIRDs. We collected data on: 1. the level of CIRD patient adherence to current subcutaneous biologic therapy using both the self-administered Compliance Questionnaire Rheumatology 5 items (CQR5) and a simple adherence question; 2. patients' knowledge of self-management of biologic therapy by the self-administered BIOSECURE questionnaire; 3. sources of information related to biologic therapy.
Results: In all, 285 patients (rheumatoid arthritis, n=103; spondyloarthritis, n=153; psoriatic arthritis, n=25) were enrolled by 19 rheumatologists. The mean (SD) biologic therapy duration was 5.9 (4.9) years. Adherence to the current biologic therapy was high (79.3% and 57.5% according to the CQR5 questionnaire and the adherence question, respectively). Level of knowledge of self-care safety skills (median BIOSECURE score 71) was in the acceptable range. Level of adherence and level of knowledge of self-care safety skills for biologic therapy were not associated. Patients declared that the main sources of information were their rheumatologist (92.6%) and the rheumatology team (30.5%).
Conclusions: According to the patients' estimation, adherence to biologic therapy and the level of knowledge of self-care safety skills related to biologic therapy are acceptable, and these domains are not related (e.g. level of adherence and level of knowledge of risks).