Morisky Medication Adherence Scale 8

The Morisky Medication Adherence Scale 8 (MMAS-8) was used to assess pill counts and patient adherence.[20] We defined adherence to drug therapy as the extent to which a patient adheres to the recommended dosage and intake interval. Medication adherence, as one aspect of adherence, was defined as the percentage of the prescribed dose that was actually taken within a certain time frame. The pill count was converted into percentiles by subtracting the number of remaining medications from the number prescribed and dividing it by the number of medications that should have been taken during a certain period according to physician instructions. A pill count value that was lower than 100 meant that the patient took less medication than prescribed. Therefore, a pill count value higher than 100 meant higher adherence. The MMAS-8 consists of 8 questions with a total score ranging from 0 to 8. A score lower than 6 means “low adherence,” 6 to lower than 8 means “intermediate adherence,” and 8 means “high adherence.” The Cronbach's alpha (α) of the MMAS-8 was 0.641.