Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Few studies have examined the adherence to anti–diabetic treatment in patients with diabetes during the fast of the month of Ramadan.

The aim of our study was to describe the adherence to antidiabetic treatment in patients with diabetes before and during the fast.

Patients and Methods: This is a descriptive and analytical study carried out on 140 diabetics who have fasted the month of Ramadan. The risk stratification was made by referring to the recommendations of the ADA 2016. Adherence to antidiabetic treatment, was judged: good if the patient regularly takes his treatment at regular times, modertate if the patient does not take his treatment at regular times, bad if the patient does not take all of his treatment and omits some medication during the week.

Results: The majority of the population (82.8% (n = 116)) had good therapeutic adherence before fasting. 17.1% (n = 24) had moderate to bad therapeutic compliance. During fasting, compliance was good in 80% of cases (n = 112), and moderate to bad in 20% of cases (n = 28). The frequency of moderate to bad adherence was significantly more frequent in the case of high or very high risk associated with fasting (25.2% (n = 25)) than in the case of low to moderate risk (7.3% (n = 3)) (P = 0.011, OR [95% CI] = 4.27 [1.2, 15]).

We studied the association of therapeutic adherence during fasting with the following factors: age, gender, level of study, duration of progression of diabetes, therapeutic adherence before fasting.

None of these factors was significantly associated with adherence during the fasting.

Conclusion: Patients at high and very high risk are often determined to fulfill the religious duty of the fast of the month of Ramadan. Our study showed less adherence to anti–diabetic treatment during fasting in them, which increases the risk of complications, including glycemic imbalance. Thus, we propose to assess therapeutic compliance in diabetics systematically before fasting and to integrate it among the factors classifying as high and very high risk.