Management of Hypertension By Patients Attending The Korle-bu Policlinic

ABSTRACT

Background: Hypertension is a common chronic non-communicable disease condition and as such takes a toll on the family and the community. Individuals with hypertension should take responsibility for their condition as this would improve blood pressure control. They should be motivated to adhere to medication, but this is not so. Hence, this study was done to assess how patients with hypertension attending Korle Bu Polyclinic managed their condition. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional survey, which recruited a total of 191 participants from the Korle Bu Polyclinic. A Semi-structured questionnaire was used to assess demographic characteristics, history and belief of hypertension. Morisky’s Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) was used to assess adherence to antihypertensive medications. Chi square, fisher exact test and logistics regression were used to test for associations using STATA 13. Results: There were 46 (23.59%) male participants, giving a male:female ratio of about 1:3. The mean age of the participants was 60.98+12.99 years and 74.36% had a Family history of hypertension. The majority of the participants (52.82%) were low adherers, 46.67% were moderate adherers while 0.51% respondents were high adherers. The majority of the participants (60.51%) had controlled blood pressure. The most common reasons attributed by participants to non-adherence were cost of medications (38.46%), access to medication 59 (30.26%) and forgetfulness 21 (10.77%) respectively. Overall, knowledge and perception of hypertension were good. Conclusion: Though majority of the participants were low adherers, this did not reflect on the blood pressure control. More research needs to be done to further explore this. Keywords: Blood pressure, Hypertension, Adherence, Barriers, Health Belief Model