OBJECTIVES: Many studies prove non-compliance to medication to be one of the biggest problems in health care today. Non-compliance can lead to increased cost of care due to additional hospitalizations, emergency care, medication. These facts are relevant for patients with arthritis as the effects of non-compliance can increase the risk of acute crisis, pain and sick pays. Our objective was to examine the factors that can lead to non-compliance among patients with arthritis. METHODS: The Morisky 8-item Medication Adherence Questionnaire was applied to 96 patients with arthritis. After the ranking of the patients to the three groups – with low adherence, with medium adherence and with high adherence, those that were in the first group were asked about the factors that make them not compliant with the medication. The factors were grouped into two groups – subjective (expensive treatment, forgetting to take medication, difficulties to follow the regimen, etc.) and objective (ADRs, difficulties with the package, difficulties to find the prescribed medication in the pharmacy, etc.) RESULTS: Thirty-one per cent were scored with low adherence, varying from 3 to 8 relevant to complete failure to take the prescribed drugs. The factors that were outlined were mainly objective – 52% - ADRs; 49% - difficulties to open the package. From the subjective factors 15% from the respondents rank the treatment as expensive and they answer that they cannot afford it to purchase the prescribed treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Drug treatment does not appear to be a significant problem in management of arthritis, as over 69 % of the patients were taking their medications all or most of the time. However the subjective factors can be demotivating for the patients and they have to be taken in mind during the patients’ consultation by the health care providers in order to be increased the rate of compliance.