Compliance to the medical treatment and factors affecting the compliance to the treatment in patients with hypertension

Hypertension, which affects approximately one billion people worldwide and is considered the leading preventable cause of cardiovascular mortality, is a global public health problem. Controlling hypertension reduces coronary artery disease, heart failure, and stroke-related mortality by a ratio of 15-20%, and prevents severe hypertension substantially. The purpose of the study is to determine the level of compliance with treatment, the factors affecting compliance with treatment and the effect of treatment compliance on blood pressure control in patients who were diagnosed with hypertension longer than six months who applied to the cardiology clinic of the Dicle University Medical Faculty Hospital. This cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted between January 1 and March 31, 2016 with 304 patients who were diagnosed with hypertension at the Cardiology Clinic of Dicle University Medical Faculty Hospital. The rate of males compliant with medication is 58.7% and the rate of females is 50.9%. 53.3% of the participants were determined to use their medications regularly. Among the reasons why participants did not take regular medication, the first place was do not taking medication (53.5%) when they felt well. This was followed by the reasons forget to take their medication with 48.8%, due to other medication related with their other diseases with 11.6%, fail to supply medication with 10.1%, and due to side effects with 6.2%. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure averages of regular drug users were significantly lower than those who did not use regular medication (p <0.05) As a result, more comprehensive studies should be conducted in this regard, considering that there are a number of factors affecting compliance with drug treatment and that these factors may change from community to community. Keywords: Hypertension, treatment compliance, affecting factors