[Patient adherence in antihypertensive treatment]
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1Szent Imre Egyetemi Oktatókórház Anyagcsere Központ Budapest Tétényi út 12-16. 1115.
Insights
Controlling high blood pressure (hypertension) is crucial for preventing serious cardiovascular events. Patient adherence to medication significantly impacts treatment success and can prevent resistant hypertension.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Public Health
Context:
- Hypertension is a prevalent chronic disease and a major cardiovascular risk factor globally.
- Effective blood pressure control is vital for reducing risks of heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and mortality, especially in high-risk individuals.
Purpose:
- To highlight the critical roles of lifestyle modifications and pharmacotherapy in managing hypertension.
- To emphasize the significant impact of patient adherence on the effectiveness of antihypertensive therapy and the development of resistant hypertension.
Summary:
- Achieving target blood pressure levels is essential for mitigating cardiovascular complications.
- Patient adherence to antihypertensive therapy is often suboptimal, with approximately half of patients becoming adherent only after one year.
- Non-adherence is a key contributor to resistant hypertension, influenced by factors such as treatment complexity, drug class characteristics, patient age, and gender.
Impact:
- Improved patient adherence can lead to better blood pressure control and reduced incidence of resistant hypertension.
- Understanding factors influencing adherence can inform strategies to enhance long-term treatment success in hypertensive patients.
- Optimizing hypertension management through adherence improvement can significantly lower cardiovascular morbidity and mortality rates.
Abstract:
Hypertension is one of the most frequent chronic diseases as well as most important cardiovascular risk factors in developed countries. Blood pressure control to target levels can significantly decrease the risk for development of coronary artery disease, stroke, chronic renal disease and mortality. Adequately maintained blood pressure is very important in high risk patients. In the treatment of hypertension, life style therapy and drug treatment have essential roles. Further, patient adherence plays a significant part of the treatment, too. Importantly, about half of the patients only become adherent to antihypertensive therapy by the end of the first year treatment. Hence, non-adherence of patients is an important cause for resistant hypertension. Adherence is influenced by the complexity of drug regimen and characteristic of drug class, as well as age and gender of patients.
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