Compliance of hypertensive patients with pharmacological treatment.

Failure of compliance with drug treatment is a major problem in all diseases requiring long-term therapy. The incidence of noncompliance is variously reported as between 5% and 60% in well-conducted investigations in hypertensive patients. Direct (objective) methods give a higher incidence of noncompliance than indirect (subjective) methods. Among factors associated with noncompliance, the complexity of the treatment regimen and the nature of the doctor-patient relationship are important; few demographic characters among the patient population can be identified. Improvement of noncompliance depends on understanding these facets of the problem.