Patient compliance in subcutaneous immunotherapy

Introduction: Allergen-specific immunotherapy is a treatment modality aiming at ameliorating symptoms for an individual known to be atopic. In the achievement of the treatment, it is important that immunotherapy is applied with ideal dosage and in regular intervals and the patient compliance is essential.

Aim of the study was to evaluate compliance with immunotherapy protocols of patients who were treated with subcutaneous allergen-specific immunotherapy (SCIT) in our clinic and their reasons for quitting the treatment.

Material and methods: All SCIT patients who had completed immunotherapy as well as those whose program was incomplete in 1993–2007 were evaluated retrospectively. Parameters thought to have an effect on compliance such as age, sex, diagnosis of the patients, onset age of immunotherapy, number of injections, SCIT termination period and the place where immunotherapy was performed were gathered from patient files, and reasons for terminating immunotherapy were examined.

Results: The percentage of patients who completed their program was 73.8%. The first two reasons for quitting the treatment were hardness and troublesomeness of the therapy (42.8%), and the high cost (23.8%). Systemic reaction development followed with a ratio of 20% which was the most frequently seen medical cause of noncompliance. The compliance of the cases who continued their treatment in our clinic was found to be significantly high (p = 0.001).

Conclusions: It is considered that patients and parents have to be informed regularly about the progress of the disease and immunotherapy program for the efficacy of SCIT treatment.