Population Ageing

The proportion of aged persons is experiencing rapid growth in the number of the world\’s population, which has become one of the key policy concern for every country . In Tunisia, according to the National Institute of Statistics, elderly people aged 60 years or over make up 11.7% in 2014, and by 2036 that number will rise to likely 20% . This age group has more risks for developing chronic pathologies, such as cardiovascular illness, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and hypertension . As a result, the complexity of pharmaceutical regimens, physical impairments and cognitive limitations of aged persons lead to lack of therapeutic adherence in this population. The poor medicine knowledge contributes to an improved risk of inappropriate therapies use, under-use of effective treatments, drug errors and adverse medication effects; which leads to an improvement in healthcare costs and the rate of rehospitalizations .
According to the World Health Organization, medication knowledge constituted a significant determinant of adherence about medication in aged patients . Thus, failure to tackle adherence of medication consists of a clinical problem in the strategic management of old patients with chronic pathologies . The frequency of drug non-adherence could vary from 15% to 93% .
However, the phenomenon of therapeutic adherence in older adults is not clear . In spite of vastly represented of old adults with chronic diseases in various investigations, their outcomes were not yet fully comprehensive enough . Therefore, this investigation aimed to assess the levels of knowledge and adherence to treatment between people aged with chronic illness. Furthermore, it aimed to study the relationship between these two factors and the clients’ sociodemographic, to provide evidence for future health