Influence of social and clinical factors on adherence to drug therapy in hypertensive individuals
International Journal of Development Research
Influence of social and clinical factors on adherence to drug therapy in hypertensive individuals
Received 29th May, 2019; Received in revised form 27th June, 2019; Accepted 19th July, 2019; Published online 28th August, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Taciana da Costa Farias Almeida et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
To evaluate the therapeutic adherence of hypertensive individuals in ambulatory follow-up and its relationship with social and clinical characteristics. Method: A descriptive, quantitative and transversal study, conducted with 162 people with hypertension, in a specialized outpatient follow-up. It was applied to Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). In the analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. Results: Similarities were found in the adherence score between the groups in relation to gender, age, schooling, skin color, family arrangement and work situation. There was no significant relationship between the social and clinical variables investigated. Prevalence was low (54.9%), with a mean score of 4.43. The factors that most interfered in adherence were: difficulty remembering to take the medications (61.7%); forget to drink (43.8%); and forget to take the medicines when leaving home (21%). Conclusion: There was a low adherence to drug treatment among participants, and the 'forgetting' variable was the main barrier to adherence to treatment. It is suggested interventions that aim to decrease forgetfulness for this population.
