ASSESSMENT OF PHARMACIST MEDIATED PATIENT COUNSELING ON MEDICATION ADHERENCE IN HYPERTENSION PATEINTS OF SOUTH INDIAN CITY

Abstract

Non adherence to antihypertensive medication is a major problem among patients with hypertension, and has been identified as one of the main causes of failure to achieve adequate control of blood pressure (BP). In turn, patients with hypertension who have elevated BP as a result of their poor adherence to medication remain at risk for serious morbidity and mortality. Hence this study was undertaken with an objective to measure the adherence of Antihypertensives therapy (AT) in hypertension patients.

A Pharmacist mediated patient counseling was carried out with pretested questionnaires on a convenience sample of 123 patients with antihypertensive therapy at the government general Hospital, Gulbarga Karnataka. Morisky scale to measure adherence to medications, in all questionnaires were shown were highly significant with values P<0.001, P<0.05, P<0.001, P<0.001 respectively. This showed the pharmacist educational intervention has improved the adherence in hypertensive patients.