Journal of Blood Disorders & Transfusion

Abstract

Adherence to Anti-hypertensive Medication and its Associated Factors among Hypertensive Patients at Goba Referral Hospital, Southeast Ethiopia

Tilahun Ermeko Wanamo*, Abate Lette Wodera, Diriba Debaba

Background: Hypertension is an overwhelming global challenge which is significant risk factors for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality resulting from target-organ damage to blood vessels in the heart, brain, kidney, and eyes. Non-adherence with long-term medication and lifestyle modifications for conditions such as hypertension, dyslipidemia and diabetes is a common problem that leads to compromised health benefits and serious economic consequences in terms of wasted time, money and uncured disease.

Objective: To assess adherence to anti-hypertensive medication and associated factors at Goba referral Hospital, Ethiopia, 2019.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted and a Systematic sampling technique was used to select 260 study participants. The study was conducted from February 01/02/2019 to June 15/06/2019. A structured interviewed questionnaires and 8-item morisky medication adherence scale was used after some modifications made. Verbal informed consent was obtained from study participants and confidentiality was maintained. The data was entered in to Epi-data version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 24. In addition, of descriptive statistics for describing data and multivariate logistic regression analyses was used to the predictors of outcome variables.

Results: In this study, 63(24.2%) of participants had low adherence towards anti-hypertensive medication. Anti-hypertensive medication adherence was significantly associated with respondents educational level (P-value =0.02), duration of medication intake (P-value= 0.01) and habit of medication intake as prescribed (P value =0.05).

Conclusion and Recommendation: In this study, almost three fourth of the study participants had high adherence level towards anti-hypertensive medication. And still a significant number of respondents had sub-optimal adherence level.  Factors such as educational level, duration of medication intake, and habit of medication intake as prescribed were associated with adherence level. To improve patient’s adherence level regular and consistence counseling regarding medication adherence by healthcare workers should be strongly recommended.

Published Date: 2021-04-28; Received Date: 2021-04-06