Assessment of medication adherence among hypertensive patients in a tertiary care teaching hospital in India

ABSTRACT

Background: Hypertension is a chronic disorder and a prevalent non-communicable disease in India. With the increasing burden of hypertension, adherence to antihypertensive therapy plays a vital role to control blood pressure and preventing its complications. Therefore, this study was done in our tertiary care hospital to understand the medication adherence level in hypertension patients. Aims and Objectives: To assess adherence to antihypertensive medications in hypertensive patients using pre-tested structured questionnaire. Materials and Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted for 3 months in 100 hypertensive patients. The adherence status of patients to antihypertensive medications was assessed using an eight-item Morisky’s Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). Results: Majority of the study participants in our study were >50 years (68%) and females (64%). We observed that patients taking combination therapy better adhered to medication than monotherapy. We assessed in detail the medication adherence level among study participants using MMAS-8 and analyzed the reasons for non-adherence. Conclusion: The medication adherence rate in our study was found to be moderate to high, which needs to be maintained to attain optimal clinical benefit and also to prevent hypertension-related complications.