Introduction:

Adherence to immunotherapy decreases rejection and graft loss, so it is necessary to identify clinical variables related to adherence in adult renal transplant recipients to optimise renal graft survival.

Objetive:

To assess the prevalence of adherence to immunotherapy and its relationship with clinical variables in young adult kidney transplant recipients in a tertiary hospital.

Material and Method:

Descriptive cross-sectional observational study. A non-probabilistic convenience sample was taken from 45 adult kidney transplant recipients. Sociodemographic and clinical variables, anxiety, and depression were studied. The Basel Assessment of Adherence to Immunosuppressive Medications Scale was used to assess adherence.

Results:

The mean age of the participants was 33.7±9.4 years. The majority were men (66.7%). The prevalence of non-adherence was 75.5%; an association was observed between adherence and the reason for hospital admission and anxiety. Non-adherent adults showed problems such as forgetting to take the immunosuppressant and delay of at least 2 hours in taking the medication.

Conclusions:

The prevalence of non-adherence to immunotherapy was higher than reported in previous studies, so continued intervention is needed to improve adherence to immunosuppressive therapy recommendations.