Compliance of hormone replacement therapy in menopausal women

BACKGROUND: The effectiveness of a given treatment is only achieved with a due compliance. Our objective was to know the compliance degree of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in menopausal women. METHOD: A descriptive observational study was carried out in three hospital s in the Valencia Community (Spain). We included menopausal patients who we re visited in a menopause unit from 1989 to 1999 and who were administered HRT. We analized age, age at menopause, type of menopause, age at starting HRT, education level, prescription reason, treatment duration, information level, side effects, and causes leading to withdrawal. RESULTS: The study was performed in 363 women. There were 75% probabilities that women fulfilled the therapy for 5 years. The median of fulfillment wa s 11 years. Those women who had side effects were more prone to withdraw th e treatment. By contrast, women who experienced benefits were less prone to withdraw it. Risk of withdrawal was also lower in cases of postsurgery men opause and in women who were younger than 55 years when they started HRT. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, the compliance level was high and it was determi ned either by treatment benefits or side effects, type of menopause and age at starting HRT.