Korean J Psychopharmacol.  2015 Apr;26(2):43-49. 10.0000/kjp.2015.26.2.43.

The Reliability and Validity of the Korean Version of Medication Adherence Rating Scale

• Chang JG
• Roh D
• Kim CH

• KMID: 2287785
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.0000/kjp.2015.26.2.43

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Finding out patient's non-adherence to medication is an important work for treating schizophrenia. The Medication Adherence Rating Scale is a self-report form, which can simply measure medication adherence in psychosis. We evaluated the reliability and validity of the Korean version of Medication Adherence Rating Scale (KMARS).
METHODS
Eighty-one individuals with schizophrenia completed the self-administered questionnaires including KMARS, Brief Adherence Rating Scale (BARS), Korean version of Drug Attitude Inventory-10 (KDAI-10) and Korean version of Medication Adherence Questionnaire (KMAQ). Psychometric properties of the KMARS were analyzed.
RESULTS
The KMARS has an acceptable internal consistency (alpha=0.71). The KMARS total scores are moderately correlated with BARS (r=0.44, p<0.01), KDAI-10 (r=0.55, p<0.01) and KMAQ (r=0.62, p<0.01). As the result of factor analysis, the structure of the KMARS is different from original scale, but the KMARS can assess not only adherence behavior but also subjective response to medication. Among the questions item 5, "I take my medication only when I am sick", should be used carefully, because it has ambiguous meaning in Korean.
CONCLUSION
KMARS is a simple and reliable tool for measuring medication adherence in psychosis.

Keyword

Adherence; Schizophrenia; Standardization

MeSH Terms

Medication Adherence*
Psychometrics
Psychotic Disorders
Surveys and Questionnaires
Reproducibility of Results*
Schizophrenia