Factors Contributing to Anti-Hypertensive Medication Adherence Among Patients With Chronic Hypertension

Objectives Medication adherence is a complex issue among patients with chronic health conditions. Several factors affect medication adherence, such as the patient’s income, co-morbidities, psychosocial factors, and health care. Addressing the problem and effective strategies for promoting sustained behaviour change are essential in chronic health conditions. The aim of the study was to investigate medication adherence and factors contributing to antihypertensive medication adherence among patients. Material and Methods This hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted in a medicine outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital in Mangaluru after obtaining ethical permission from the Institutional Ethics Committee. The data were collected from 354 subjects, who were selected by a convenience sampling technique. The validated and pretested tool has 22 items on factors contributing to medication adherence, and a single question enquiring about medication adherence was administered to the subjects after obtaining their written consent. The data were collected using a pretested questionnaire and a face-to-face structured interview technique. The tool had three major aspects: the enumerators imported the data into the statistical package for Social Science version 23, and then the data for statistical tests like frequency, percentage, and Chi-square were in line with the pre-determined study objectives. Results Out of 354 subjects, 49.4% (175) of the subjects found non-adherence to the prescribed medications, and 50.6% (179) were adherent to medications. The mean age of the subjects was 61.19 ± 11.04; the study had 52.8% (187) males and 47.2% (167) females. The adherence status of male was 50.7% (94), which was higher than that of their female counterparts at 48.5% (81).This study found education χ 2 =10.64, ( p = 0.03), smoking status χ 2 =7.19, ( p = 0.024), income χ 2 =9.30 ( p = 0.01), availability of the emotional support χ 2 =11.6, ( p = 0.001), availability of financial support χ 2 =11.08 ( p = 0.004), medication reminder χ 2 = 4.19, ( p = 0.04), exposure in the past for counselling χ 2 =5.81, ( p = 0.01) and home BP monitoring χ 2 =4.52, ( p = 0.03) as predictors of medication adherence. Conclusion The findings indicate that only half the proportion of the study subjects adhered to the prescribed medications, and urged hospitals to embrace multiple interventions to motivate the patients to show compliance towards the prescribed therapeutic regimen.