Common risk factors of non-adherence antihypertensive medication and its determinants among patients

Abstract

Background: Adherence to pharmacological treatment for hypertension is considered a key factor in guaranteeing successful therapy outcomes. Non-adherence to antihypertensive therapy can be determined by demographic, drug related, disease related and setting related factors. Objective: To assess the common risk factors of non-adherence antihypertensive medication and its determinants among patients. Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted at Cardiology Dept. Islami Bank Community Hospital Faridpur and 250 Bedded General Hospital, Gopalgonj, Bangladesh July to December 2021. A total of 120 patients were interviewed with a structured standard questionnaire and patient medication charts were reviewed. The questionnaire contained of demographic questions and characteristics of hypertension and its therapy. The data collected were cleaned, entered and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 19 for windows with 95% confidence interval and P value <0.05. Results: Total 120 study participants were interviewed of which 74 (61.7%) were female and 46 (38.3%) were males. The mean age of respondents was 54.7±12.7 years. Forty-five (37.5%) of the participants were at the age of above 60 years and 81 (67.5%) were illiterate. A large proportion of the subjects, 85 (70.8%), were married and 40 (33.3%) of the total study population were unemployed while 30 (25%) were housewives. Around one fourth (25%) of the study participants were found to be non-adherent to their treatment. Family support on adherence (AOR = 0.170, 95%CI = 0.030-0.905), spot blood pressure (AOR = 0.052, 95%, CI =0.003-0.242), place of patient residence (AOR=0.184, 95%CI =0.024-0.597) and hypertension related complications (AOR= 21.737, 95%CI =1.568-418.428) were found significantly and strongly associated with treatment non-adherence. Conclusions: In conclusion, this study were completely non-adherent and only around half of them were adherent to their medications. The absences of family support, being at the prehypertension class of blood pressure, hypertensive heart disease were shown to decrease adherence to antihypertensive medications. Therefore, health care professionals should be adequately trained and resourced to offer proper counseling to hypertensive patients on their medication and disease conditions.