Satisfaction and medication adherence in women with vulvovaginal atrophy: the CRETA.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the self-reported satisfaction of Spanish postmenopausal women currently treated for vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA) symptoms.

METHODS: The CRETA (CRoss sectional European sTudy on Adherence) is a multicenter cross-sectional study conducted in 29 public and private hospitals in Spain, which enrolled postmenopausal women receiving treatment with ospemifene, local hormone therapy (HT) or vaginal moisturizers for VVA. After the prior informed consent of the patients, sociodemographic and treatment perception data were collected using a structured questionnaire.

RESULTS: Among 752 women who completed the survey, the satisfaction score was significantly higher for the group treated with ospemifene (mean 8.3 ± 1.4) compared with the local HT group (7.2 ± 1.7) and the vaginal moisturizer group (6.5 ± 2.1) according to a 10-point Likert scale ( p  < 0.0001). Compared to vaginal moisturizers and local HT, participants treated with ospemifene reported the highest adherence (96.7% vs. 70.2% and 78.6%, respectively) and the lowest number of missed doses in the last month (0.6 ± 1.3 standard deviation [SD] vs. 3.5 ± 4.3 SD and 2.0 ± 2.8 SD, respectively) ( p  < 0.0001). Ospemifene was significantly perceived as easy to use (83.9% vs. 44.9% and 58.6%, respectively; p  < 0.0001), efficacious in reducing the time to relieve symptoms (17.1% vs. 7.0% and 6.7%, p  = 0.0005 and p  = 0.0006, respectively) and convenient for sexual life (53.1% vs. 25.6% and 42.3%, p  < 0.0001 and p  = 0.0234, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS: Among postmenopausal women with VVA, treatment with ospemifene has the most positive perceptions and the highest overall satisfaction level and could be an optimal therapeutic approach, maximizing patient adherence.