THE EFFECTS OF ILLNESS PERCEPTION ON IMMUNOSUPPRESSIVE MEDICATION ADHERENCE IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING LIVER TRANSPLANTATION

Illness perception directly impacts illness-related problems, coping with the current condition, emotions and thoughts, and therapy adherence. The current work aimed to identify the effects of illness perception on immunosuppressive medication adherence in patients who had undergone liver transplantation. This descriptive research was completed with 125 liver transplant patients. The Patient Information Form, Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), and Immunosuppressive Medication Adherence Scale (IMAS) were utilized to collect data. The data were evaluated using descriptive statistics (percentage, mean, number, etc.), ANOVA test, t-test, simple linear regression analysis, and Pearson’s correlation analysis. The work determined that patients who had a living-donor transplant and perceived their general health condition as moderate had high illness perception and sub-dimension mean scores. Patients whose living donors were their parents had high cognitive illness perception, and patients in whom one year had passed since transplantation had high cognitive illness perception and mean BIPQ scores (p < 0.05). The mean BIPQ score was 19.97±10.19, whereas the mean IMAS score was 47.34±4.85. The variable of illness perception had a statistically significant negative impact on immunosuppressive therapy adherence (β=-0.244, p < 0.05). Some clinical characteristics of patients were found to affect their illness perception. It was revealed that patients had a positive illness perception and high immunosuppressive therapy adherence. Immunosuppressive therapy adherence was found to increase in patients with a positive illness perception.