Response to comment on “Medication nonadherence in Korean patients with rheumatoid arthritis: the importance of belief about medication and illness perception”

Thank you for your interest in the article entitled “Medication nonadherence in Korean patients with rheumatoid arthritis: the importance of belief about medication and illness perception” and your comments.

First, we divided into two groups, unintentional and intentional group, and if a patient has both intentional nonadherence behavior and unintentional nonadherence behavior, we classified them as unintentional nonadherence group. This is because we focus on intentional nonadherence, which can be improved rather than unintentional nonadherence. Secondly, we measured adherence by the tools presented in the reference literature [1] and that was validated. Finally, it was difficult to assess adherence with each drug because we investigated adherence through the questionnaire, the patient was unable to distinguish between drugs. Instead, we analyzed adherence with daily medication (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and/or disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs group), once a week medication (methotrexate group), and biological medication.

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