Introduction: Arterial hypertension is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Despite rigorous knowledge of pathophysiology of this entity and wide accessibility to highly effective drugs the rate of hypertension control is still low. Currently the lack of appropriate patient cooperation including irregular drug taking and unhealthy lifestyle are regarded to contribute most to the low efficacy of hypertension treatment. Many studies demonstrated the role of educational programmes in better hypertension control. It is now necessary to indicate those groups that need such efforts particularly.
Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the factors affecting regular drug taking among hypertensive patients.
Methods: 222 ambulatory patients (x=56 years, 123 males and 99 females) of the I Department of Cardiology of the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow were analyzed in this study. We used a detailed, uniform own questionnaire to get the following information from the patients: regularity of drug taking, age, level of education, place of living, occupational category, incomes, coexisting diseases, costs of drugs and self-control of blood pressure. Afterwards we compared two groups: patients that use drugs systematically and those who do not. A computer software Statistica PI was used for statistical analyses.
Results: Most of patients (129; 58%) declared regular drug taking. We observed statistically significant differences between two analyzed groups for the following parameters: level of education, place of living, occupational category, incomes, knowledge of the definition of hypertension and regularity of blood pressure self-control. Patients living in cities, currently working, with higher level of education, higher incomes, well defining hypertension and measuring blood pressure regularly were more systematic in drug taking. The logistic regression analysis showed that only low incomes were independently associated with irregular drug using.