Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Inonu University Vocational School of Health Services, cilt.14, sa.1, ss.115-126, 2026 (Scopus, TRDizin)
Illness perception directly impacts illness-related problems, coping with the current condition, emotions and thoughts, and adherence to therapy. The current work aimed to identify the effects of illness perception on immunosuppressive medication adherence in patients who had undergone liver transplantation. A descriptive correlational study was conducted between October 2024 and March 2025 at the organ transplantation outpatient clinic of a university hospital in eastern Türkiye. The study included 125 liver transplant patients. The Patient Information Form, Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), and Immunosuppressive Medication Adherence Scale (IMAS) were used to collect data. The data were evaluated using descriptive statistics (percentages, means, counts), ANOVA, t-test, simple linear regression, and Pearson’s correlation analysis. The study determined that patients who had a living-donor transplant and perceived their general health condition as moderate had high illness-perception scores and high mean scores on illness-perception subdimensions. Patients whose living donors were their parents, and patients for whom one year had passed since transplantation, had high cognitive illness perception; the latter group also had higher mean BIPQ scores (p < 0.05). The mean BIPQ score was 19.97 ± 10.19, whereas the mean IMAS score was 47.34 ± 4.85. Illness perception had a statistically significant negative impact on adherence to immunosuppressive therapy (β =-0.244, p < 0.05). Some clinical characteristics were found to affect patients’ illness perception. Patients demonstrated a positive illness perception and high adherence to immunosuppressive therapy. Immunosuppressive therapy adherence was found to increase in patients with a positive illness perception.