Objective:

To determinate the relation between dependence, cognitive health, and depressive symptoms with pharmacological adherence on diabetic elderly patients who have type 2 diabetes and belong to a family health center in the Province of Ñuble.

Method:

It was quantitative, correlational, and cross-sectional study. The sample was constituted by 79 elderly patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The data collection was carried out by home visits using Barthel Index, Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Yesavage, Morisky-Green Geriatric Scale, and a data inquiry about sociodemographic and health. The data was processed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences program (SPSS), using descriptive statistics, normality tests and inference tests according to each variable level.

Results:

Most participants were female with an average age of 73.6 years. A 35.4% presented a certain degree of dependency, a 24.1% presented cognitive damage, a 34.2% presented depressive symptoms and a 59.5% of elderly patients were not adherent to pharmacological treatment. It was only found a relation between depressive symptoms with adherence pharmacological (p = 0.04).

Conclusions:

It was found that a high percentage of elderly patients is not meeting the prescribed therapy, highlighting the connection between depressive symptoms with pharmacological adherence. That is why it is important to evaluate personal conditions and environment that are related to pharmacological adherence, a relevant topic for public health that must be treated beyond figures, involving health teams, patient, family, government, among others.

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