Compliance to Antihypertensive Therapy and its Predictors: A Cross-sectional Study in Western Coastal Region of India
LC26-LC30
Correspondence
Dr. Pradeep Pithadia,
Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine,
Shri M.P. Shah Government Medical College, Jamnagar-36100, Gujarat, India.
E-mail: pradeep280683@gmail.com
Introduction: Hypertension (HTN) is a chronic Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) characterised by persistently raised Blood Pressure (BP >140/90 mmHg), leading to various complications and currently causing the highest mortality, worldwide. The risks of morbidity and mortality related to HTN can be diminished by proper compliance to pharmacotherapy.
Aim: To assess the compliance to treatment of HTN and to study its correlation with various sociodemographic variables, presence of other comorbidities, BP control, duration of disease and knowledge about duration of continuation of antihypertensives.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a district of Gujarat, India for a period of one year. A sample size of 400 was calculated. Hypertensive patients attending Non Communicable Disease (NCD) clinics at the tertiary care hospital and Community Health Centres (CHCs) of Jamnagar district, Gujarat, India selected by simple random sampling, formed the study population. Data were collected from patients using a predesigned, pretested and semistructured questionnaire. The data were analysed by MedCalc 10.4.8.0 software applying Chi-square test.
Results: The rate of treatment compliance observed was 359 (89.8%). Among the non compliant patients, 28 (68.3%) had poor compliance whereas 13 (31.7%) had discontinued the treatment. Compliance to treatment showed highly significant association (p<0.001) with age, type of family, educational status, socioeconomic status, locality of residence, health insurance status and knowledge about hypertensive treatment. Patients with improper knowledge about treatment were more likely to be non compliant. It was observed the duration of illness was inversely proportional to the treatment compliance and this was statistically significant (p<0.05). Significant statistical association (p<0.05) was also observed between marital status and occupation of the patient and compliance. The other reasons of non compliance were forgetfulness, financial reasons and it was also observed that patients did not like to carry their medications when away from home. It was observed that only 10 (24.4%) of the non compliant patients had controlled BP as compared to 150 (41.9%) in the compliant patients.
Conclusion: The findings of the study suggest measures should be taken for proper awareness among patients regarding HTN, its treatment and complications. Log book maintenance and other measures for checking compliance should be adopted.