Perception of social support and compliance with treatmen in hypertensive patients

This study was planned to investigate the relationship between perception of social support and compliance with treatment in patients with hypertension. Between January 2016 and January 2017, 285 patients who were admitted to the Internal Medicine Outpatient Clinic and Internal Medicine Department of Marmaraereğlisi Public Hospital, followed up with the diagnosis of hypertension and accepted to participate in the study constituted the sample of the study. Data were collected by using the Patient Information Form, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) and Medication Adherence Self-Efficacy Scale (MASES). The data were analyzed by parametric tests because the research data were suitable for normal distribution. Independent group t-test analysis was used for comparison of binary groups and ANOVA test was used for comparison of multiple groups. In order to test the relationship between the research variables, Pearson correlation analysis was performed. The mean age of the patients was 64.26±11.08 years, 64.2% were women, 81.1% were married and 67.7% were secondary and high school students. The mean total score of the patients in the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support was 81.65±21.81 and the total score obtained from the Medication Adherence Self-Efficacy Scale was 70.61±11.2. The mean scores were higher than the intermediate level. In the study, it was determined that compliance with treatment was affected by factors such as marital status, education, income level, the person he / she lived with, frequency of blood pressure measurement, tea-coffee consumption and diet (p<0.05). Also it was determined that social support was affected by factors such as education, how to drink antihypertensive drugs, frequency of blood pressure measurement, frequency of hypertension controls (p<0.05). According to research results, there was no significant correlation between perception of social support and compliance with treatment in patients with hypertension. Keywords: Hypertension, compliance with treatment, social support