People living with uncontrolled hypertension: adherence and beliefs in the medical treatment

The aim was to identify the beliefs emitted by uncontrolled hypertensive individuals related to adherence to prescribed drug therapy. A cross-sectional study was performed with 122 hypertensive patients admitted to a 24-hour Emergency Service, both genders, aged over 18 years, with pressure values greater than or equal to 140x90 mmHg, from June to July 2017. The variables surveyed were: sociodemographic data, adherence score measured by the Morisk Green scale and treatment-related beliefs, identified according to the Theory of Rational Action (TRA) constructs. The majority of the patients were female (65.6%), white skin color (59%), married (49.2%), retired (45.1%) and with low schooling 6.35 (± 5.42) years of study. Regarding adherence to treatment, most of the time it was low (56.6%). In relation to the salient behavioral beliefs, emitted by the advantages of adhering to treatment, we found: control the pressure (31.1%), improve health (22.1%), have no disease (14.8%) and none described advantage (13.1%); disadvantages: none (67.2%), dependence (19.7%), cost (2.5%), cough and side effects (1.6%) each. Among the salient normative beliefs related to the positive social referents were: children (48.4%), wife (22%), none (13.9%), husband (12.3%) and siblings %), and the negative ones, none (86.1%), religion (1.6%) and uncle, church friends and mother (0.8%) each. There was a low adherence to the treatment, although they mentioned no disadvantage and no one interfered negatively in the treatment. Thus, we suggest a study that seeks to evaluate the behavioral intention of these uncontrolled hypertensive patients to adhere to the treatment drugs for hypertension.