Abstract

Patient compliance to medical regimens plays a crucial role in the battle against lupus. However, for some reason, lupus patients don’t always comply and adhere to the treatments given to them by their physicians. Like lupus, other chronic diseases such as cancer and HIV have always had a dilemma with compliance. Researchers agree that patients have drastic changes to their current lifestyle due to these illnesses but what is at the root of noncompliance? This research will give a brief introduction of what lupus is and will then address the following questions such as how is lupus diagnosed and treated, what factors make compliance so difficult, and what measures can be taken to improve it.

Introduction

Life with lupus is a constant battle, but treatments are successful for the most part. Learning how to cope with lupus is the best way to fight the disease, while there is no cure available. Compliance plays a major part in coping and management strategies in chronic illnesses such as lupus. Unfortunately, patients with such illnesses still have problems with adherence. There are a number of factors that affect noncompliance in patients. This paper will discuss such factors and give strategies used in a nattempt to increase patient compliance.

What is Lupus?
Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment of Lupus

Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease which compromises one’s immune system. In lupus, the immune system loses its ability to tell the difference between a foreign substance and one’s own normal tissues and cells. This causes the antibodies to mistakenly identify one’s own normal cells as foreign (antigens), and then to take action to eliminate them. The system is out of control and the body starts to attack itself.
Since the cause of lupus is unknown at this time, scientists believe that genetic, environmental, and hormonal factors can activate it. Evidence has shown that lupus can be inherited but there is not one specific gene that causes lupus. Phillips (2001) says that “evidence suggests that many different genes contribute to susceptibility to lupus” (p.7). The percentage of children that inherit lupus from their parents is very small. The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA, n. d.) found that only 5 percent of children born to parents with the disease become heirs to it, and 10 percent of lupus patients will have immediate relatives who possess or possibly will acquire it at some time.

Because of these facts, scientists also believe that environmental factors act as an accomplice to genetic factors in the role they play in triggering lupus. “Studies of identical twins in which one twin did not develop the disease support this” (Phillips, 2001, p. 8). Sunlight, infections, and certain drugs are examples of these environmental factors.