Medication adherence and gender difference in hypertensive patients

Objective: One of the major clinical problems in the management of arterial hypertension (AH) is adherence to the medical regimen. Failure to adhere affects not only patients causing disease progression, reduced functional abilities as well as lower quality of life, but also the healthcare system due to medication waste and increased hospital visits and admissions. Data about hypertensive medication adherence in our region are lacking. Therefore, we aimed to assess medication adherence in our hypertensive patients in order to identify possible strategies to improve and enhance mentioned adherence. Design and method: This study included 324 participants with AH, of which 51.2 % were men, and with an overall median age of 64 years (IQR = 17). Along with the 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurement, each patient completed a medication adherence questionnaire, Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). This self-reported questionnaire consists of 8 questions with a total score ranging from 0 to 8 and a lower score indicates lower adherence to the prescribed pharmacological antihypertensive therapy. Results: 51 (15.7%) participants had low, 114 (35.2%) had moderate and 159 (49.1%) had high medication adherence. There was no significant difference in MMAS-8 score regarding age (p = 0.334), however, men were found to have -higher adherence to antihypertensive therapy than women (58.5% vs. 41.5% had high adherence, respectively, p = 0.018). Conclusions: The results of our study showed that more than half of our hypertensive patients (50.9%) are not completely adherent to antihypertensive medication. Among all of them women were found to have lower adherence compared to men. Low medication adherence could lead to substantial worsening of disease as well as increased health care costs in care of hypertensive patients. Therefore, the presented results highlight the need for patient education and support to increase patient adherence in order to reduce cardiovascular risk.