Compliance with Treatment in Combat Veterans with Cephalgia and Inpatients of the Somatic Wards

Compliance (adherence) to treatment is one of the important components of success therapy. In the modern world, the number of people who took part in military operations, received injuries and receive medical care in a hospital setting is growing. The aim of this work is to assess compliance with treatment in inpatients of various categories: combat veterans who have suffered a traumatic brain injury and complain of headaches, and inpatients who have not participated in combat operations with painful and non-painful forms of various somatic or neurological diseases. Material and methods. The study was conducted in two hospitals in Ufa: the Republican Clinical Hospital of War Veterans (RCHWV) and the clinic of the Bashkir State Medical University (CBSMU). All patients were interviewed using the Morisky-Green compliance scale. We examined 155 patients of the middle age group: 56 male patients from CBSMU and 99 (55 men and 44 women) patients from RCHWV, who gave informed voluntary consent to participate in the study and were divided into subgroups depending on the presence and duration of pain. Results. Patients at the CBSMU suffering from chronic pain were somewhat more committed to therapy and listened more attentively to the doctor’s recommendations (average score on the Morisky – Green scale – 2.41 ± 0.19) than patients who did not experience pain (average score on the Morisky – Green scale – 2.37 ± 0.16), but the differences between the subgroups were statistically insignificant (p = 0.87). Among the combat veterans from the RCHWV, statistically significant differences between patients of the two subgroups (those hospitalized for the first time after a traumatic brain injury and those observed for a long time) in terms of compliance with treatment were not obtained, and their average compliance rate was significantly (p = 0.004) lower than in the group from CBSMU (1.82 ± 0.10). Conclusion. Despite the fact that the sample of veteran patients was younger in age, and all these patients had pain (cephalgia), for the treatment of which they sought medical help, their compliance with treatment, according to this study, was significantly lower than in the group of patients who did not participate in combat operations. This indicates that patients who participated in combat operations represent a difficult contingent to manage and require an even more thorough and personalized approach and consideration of their psychological characteristics when planning their management programs than patients in other hospitals.