Alcohol Intake Improves Adherence of Pregabalin and Tramadol/Acetaminophen to RA and OA Patients

Clinical managements of chronic pain in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA) require deep understanding of patients. Since medication is mostly set under the guidelines of RA and OA to control of pain, but personal characteristics is not so much paid attention in terms of preferences. In the present study, alcohol preference was analyzed in the patients prescribed pregabalin and tramadol/acetaminophen in our hospital. All consecutive patients were requested to write up the medical questionnaire sheet before medical examination. The responses to this sheet are completely subjective. The close relation between habitual alcohol drinking and adherence of analgesics was observed in terms of adherence of pregabalin and tramadol/acetaminophen. That is, in OA patients, alcohol drinkers showed good adherence to pregabalin and also tramadol/acetaminophen. However, in RA patients, alcohol drinkers showed higher ratio to good adherence, but there was no significance between alcohol drinkers and non-alcohol drinkers. When total patients were analyzed, alcohol drinkers showed significantly higher adherence with pregabalin and also tramadol/acetaminophen. Therefore, it is recommended that precise personal preference had better to be taken in medical examination before prescription of pregabalin and tramadol/ acetaminophen in RA and OA patients.