Sociodemographic variables (sex, age, marital status,
residential area, education level, employment status and
monthly household income);
— Scale of Measure Treatment Adherence (MTA)13 used to
evaluate adherence to treatment. The items 1 to 4 were
adapted from Morisky Medication Adherence Scale. The
questions were answered in six-point Likert scale (ranging
from always = 1 to never = 6). The level of adherence is
obtained through the mean. Higher values mean higher
adherence level. In order to classify patients that showed
adherence or not to treatment with medicines, this scale
was dichotomized based on the cut-off point at the median.
— Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ)14 that
evaluates patients’ beliefs about medication. We used
BMQ-SpeciÀ c that assesses the cognitive representations
that individuals make in relation to medicines for their
speciÀ c health problem. The questionnaire consists of
two scales: one assessing necessity of prescribed medications
and other assessing concerns about potential
adverse consequences of taking the medications.