Assessment of Adherence to Anti-hypertensive Treatment among Patients Attending a Urban Health Care Facility of a Medical College, Tumkur

Chronic non-communicable diseases are posing a serious threat to public health throughout the world, irrespective of whether developed and developing and thus deserve to be treated as a global health priority.Hypertension is the leading modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular diseases.Poor compliance to antihypertensive therapies has been linked to a variety of problems, including poor blood pressure control, rehospitalisation and increased healthcare resource utilization.Methodology: This Cross-Sectional study was carried out among all adult hypertensive patients from September to October 2018 visiting Urban Health Training Centre of Sri Siddhartha Medical College.Results: Out of 150 study subjects Majority of them 66 (44%) were having hypertension for 10-15 yrs and least 18 (12%) were having Hypertension for >5 yrs, 81 (54%) were Purchasing drugs from Private sectors and others from Government sector.30 (20%) were taking 2 tablets per day, 109 (72.7%) were taking 1 tablet per day.90 (60%) were having Low adherence, 36 (24%) were having Medium adherence and 24 (16%) High adherence for Drugs using Morisky Adherence scale.When we studied association between Adherence to drugs with other Socio-demographic characteristics, we got statistically significant results with Socioeconomic status, residence and Place of Purchase of drugs (P=0.0).Conclusion: Adherence to drugs was found to be low in the present study.The level of adherence to treatment among the participants can be achieved by educating the Patients and creating awareness.