Adherence to treatment and evaluation of disease and therapy knowledge in Lebanese hypertensive patients

BACKGROUND: Adherence to treatment, healthy lifestyle, physical activities, smoking, diet, and salt intake are important factors to control for an effective decrease in blood pressure (BP) values for patients diagnosed with essential hypertension (HT). The aim of this work was to study the adherence to antihypertensive treatment and factors predicting this behavior in Lebanese patients. In addition, we evaluated the extent of patient’s knowledge and perceptions about HT, risk factors, and medication side effects. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted between May and September 2015 among 249 participants randomly recruited from community and hospital pharmacies (56.6%), private cardiology clinics (37%), and outpatient clinics located in hospitals (6.4%) in Baabda region of Lebanon. The questionnaire was prepared after reviewing published literature. Data were collected by trained and certified interviewers and analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences program. p-value less than 0.05 was considered to determine the statistical significance. RESULTS: Among the 249 patients interviewed, 48% were females with a mean age of 62±17.2 years. Overweight and obesity was declared in 42.2% and 35.3%, respectively. Only 52.6% of participants reported visiting their physicians for regular checkups, and 72% claimed checking their BP routinely at home. Awareness of complications related to HT was very high (97%). However, our results showed that 89.2% of the participants were found to be adherent to treatment, and forgetfulness was cited as the main reason for non-adherence to therapy. Only health coverage showed statistical significance (p=0.01) between adherent and non-adherent participants. CONCLUSION: A better communication between patients and their physicians, the use of a special container for medication packaging, and reminder to refill prescriptions are important parameters to enhance adherence to treatment. HT can be better managed if an educational system is implemented to increase awareness.