Level of Adherence to Treatment and Compliance of Iraqi Hypertensive Patients in Al-Najaf City

Abstract

Hypertension remains one of the leading challenges in modern medicine. Despite the development and implementation of new medical technologies and standards, morbidity and mortality resulting from hypertension-related complications continue to rise globally. A key factor in the effectiveness of therapy is patient adherence to treatment (or compliance), defined as the extent to which a patient’s behavior aligns with a physician’s recommendations. However, several factors may contribute to non/ or poor adherence. This study aimed to assess the level of adherence to antihypertensive treatment among Iraqi hypertensive patients in Al-Najaf city, middle of Iraq and to identify the factors influencing patient’s adherence. Therefore we conducted a cross-sectional study including 100 Iraqi patients with a confirmed essential hypertension of both genders. The adherence to treatment of patients was assessed using Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8) which is the widely used too for assessment of adherence to treatment for many diseases. Our findings showed that 75% of the patients were not or poorly adhere to treatment and none had high adherence level. None of the demographic variables, including age, gender, marital status, level of education and occupation status showed significant association with the level of education. Almost 35% of the patients attributed their behavior of treatment cessation to the unavailability or high cost of medications as well as using polytherapy, particularly large number of medications prescribed for treatment of associated comorbidities.
Kaywords: Hypertension, Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8), Adherence