Adherence to medications and associated factors: A cross-sectional study among Palestinian hypertensive patients

To assess adherence of Palestinian hypertensive patients to therapy and to investigate the effect of a range of demographic and psychosocial variables on medication adherence.

A questionnaire-based, cross-sectional descriptive study was undertaken at a group of outpatient clinics of the Ministry of Health, in addition to a group of private clinics and pharmacies in the West Bank. Social and demographic variables and self-reported drug adherence (Morisky scale) were determined for each patient.

Low adherence with medications was present in 244 (54.2%) of the patients. The multivariate logistic regression showed that younger age (<45 years), living in a village compared with a city, evaluating health status as very good, good or poor compared with excellent, forgetfulness, fear of getting used to medication, adverse effect, and dissatisfaction with treatment had a statistically significant association with lower levels of medication adherence (P<0.05).

Poor adherence to medications was very common. The findings of this study may be used to identify the subset of population at risk of poor adherence who should be targeted for interventions to achieve better blood pressure control and hence prevent complications. This study should encourage the health policy makers in Palestine to implement strategies to reduce non-compliance, and thus contribute toward reducing national health care expenditures. Better patient education and communication with healthcare professionals could improve some factors that decrease adherence such as forgetfulness and dissatisfaction with treatment.