Reliability and Validity of Morisky Medication Adherence Scale for Assessing Medication Adherence in Children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

OBJECTIVE To explore the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Morisky scale(including guardian version and minor version) applied in assessing medication adherence of children with inflammatory bowel disease, and to clarify the current status and features of medication adherence in children. METHODS The 141 children with inflammatory bowel disease were studied, and collect data through on-site distribution and collection of questionnaires using the Chinese version of the Morisky scale as an evaluation tool. Cronbach's a and factor analysis were used to evaluate the internal consistency and construct validity of scales, respectively, and Spearman test was used to evaluate the correlation between medication adherence and disease severity in children. RESULTS The internal consistency of guardian and minor version of Morisky scale determined by Cronbach's a were 0.701 and 0.738, respectively, while factor analysis indicated that the two scales were all composed of three factors which could explain 67.94% and 72.24% of total variance contribution rate, respectively. The adherence score of the 141 children was 6.75(4.75, 8.0). Among them, 58(41.1%), 39(27.7%) and 44(31.2%) children had poor, moderate and good medication adherence respectively; significant negative correlation was found between children's medication adherence and their disease severity(R_s=-0.286, P=0.001). CONCLUSION Both the guardian and minor version of the Chinese-version Morisky scale exhibit good reliability and validity in evaluating medication adherence in children with inflammatory bowel disease, thus can be applied to evaluate medication adherence in children. Nearly half of the children with inflammatory bowel disease have poor medication adherence, while forgetting to take medicine is the main barrier, and significant negative correlation is found between children's medication adherence and their disease severity, high attention should be given to clinical practice.