• Youran Liu, Yan Wang, Xiulan Peng, and Hui Xie.
• School of nursing, Bengbu Medical University, No. 2600 Donghai Avenue, Bengbu, China.
• Respir Care. 2024 Jun 21.

AbstractBackground: Medication adherence to inhaler therapy is pivotal for optimizing the management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Individuals with COPD often have suboptimal adherence behaviors to inhaler therapy. Illness perception and beliefs about medicines have been proved to be associated with medication adherence. Nevertheless, the influence of illness perception and medication beliefs on adherence to inhaler therapy among elderly individuals with COPD in China remains unclear.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 252 elderly COPD participants in China from June 2022 to September 2023. The Test of Adherence to Inhalers (TAI), the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ) and the Belief about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) were utilized. Spearman correlations, regression analysis and parallel mediation analysis were employed to assess the correlations and mediating effects among beliefs about medicines, illness perception, and medication adherence to inhaler therapy.Results: Medication adherence to inhaler therapy exhibited a negative correlation with concerns beliefs, while showing positive correlations with illness perception, necessity beliefs and total BMQ scores. Mediating effects of concerns beliefs and necessity beliefs were observed in the relationship between perception of illness and medication adherence to inhaler therapy.Conclusions: This study suggests that essential interventions targeting beliefs about medicines in elderly individuals with COPD should be implemented to optimize the level of their inhaler adherence, particularly in those with low levels of necessity beliefs or high levels of concerns beliefs.Copyright © 2024 by Daedalus Enterprises.

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