Adherence to hypertension medication is low (24.1%) in this rural South Indian population, with better adherence observed in patients with healthier lifestyles and higher perceived health risks and benefits.
We studied 473 hypertensive patients of which 226 were males and 247 were females. The prevalence of adherence was 24.1% (n = 114) in the study population. Respondents with regular physical activity, non-smokers and non-alcoholics were more adherent to HT medication as compared with respondents with sedentary lifestyle, smoking and alcohol intake (P < 0.005). Based on health belief model, the respondents who perceived high susceptibility, severity, benefit had better adherence compared with moderate and low susceptibility, severity, benefit.
Venkatachalam et al. (Thu,) studied this question.