To explore medication adherence of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus using the latent profile analysis based on the Big Five personality theory

OBJECTIVE To explore the personality portraits of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), its relationship with medication adherence and the influencing factors of medication adherence. METHODS T2DM patients from 22 community health service stations of 4 community health service centers in Tongzhou district and Shunyi district in Beijing were selected as the research objects. A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect demographic information. The short version of Big Five personality scale was used to collect personality information, and latent profile analysis was used to explore their personality portraits. The medication adherence was evaluated by medication adherence scale, and the difference of medication adherence among the different personality portraits was explored by analysis of variance. The influencing factors of medication adherence were explored by the ordinal Logistic regression model. RESULTS In the study, 751 T2DM patients were included. Latent profile analysis showed that the T2DM patients in this study could be divided into four types of personality portraits, including introverted and stable type (42.7%), negative type (12.7%), anxiety type (15.3%) and active and responsible type (29.3%). Among them, 75 patients said that they did not use medicine or insulin, 5 patients were lack of data, and finally 671 patients with T2DM were included in the analysis about medication adherence. The analysis of variance showed that there was no significant difference in medication adherence between anxiety type (5.55±1.65) and negative type (5.94±1.53, P=0.089), but the medication adherence score of anxiety type was significantly lower than that of introverted and stable type (6.17±1.46, P=0.001) and active and responsible type (6.09±1.65, P=0.004). Anxiety type and negative type were seen as a whole in the ordinal Logistic regression model named anxiety and negative type. The results showed that compared with anxiety and negative type, the active and responsible type or introverted and stable type was the protective factor for good medication adherence (OR=1.567, 95%CI: 1.096-2.237; OR=1.774, 95%CI: 1.214-2.591), and the education level also affected the medication adherence. CONCLUSION T2DM can be classified into four types of personality portraits based on Big Five personality theory. The anxiety and negative type after the combination of anxiety type and negative type is the independent risk factor for poor medication adherence. In addition, education level is also the influencing factor of medication compliance.