Influence of inhalation device, active substance, and drug formulation on the compliance of patients with obstructive pulmonary diseases. A physicians' perspective

Aim: To investigate the perspective of physicians treating chronic airway diseases on the importance of device and substance characteristics influencing the compliance of patients with chronic obstructive airways diseases.Objective: We surveyed physicians' perspective on the impact of device and substance characteristics on patients' compliance. Methods: This study was carried out by running a structured questionnaire, to a total of 144 physicians, conducting personal interviews and evaluating answers on a scale from 1 for most to 6 for least important influencing parameter.Results: Overall, the most important parameters influencing patients' compliance according to physicians' perspective were rapid onset of action, type of inhalation device and duration of action. Adverse events were considered as the least important parameter. When COPD and asthma were examined separately, the most important parameters influencing compliance were rapid onset of action, ease of use and duration of action. Rapid onset of action was significantly more important in asthma than COPD.Conclusion: Onset and duration of action and ease of use were classified higher as important parameters to increase patients' compliance, according to physicians' perspective.(c) 2020 Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia. Published by Elsevier Espan tilde a, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).