Evaluation Of Prescription Pattern And Medication Adherence Of Antihypertensive Drugs In Stage 1 Essential Hypertensive Patients At Rural Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital Of Central India.

Objectives- To study the prescription pattern of antihypertensive drugs and analyze the medication adherence to antihypertensive drugs at rural tertiary care teaching hospital. Materials and Methods - Prospective, observational, 12 weeks, questionnaire based study, conducted in rural tertiary care teaching hospital of central India. 214 antihypertensive prescriptions were analyzed by Morisky medication adherence scale. Statistical analysis was done by MS Excel and Graph pad prism 6.0. Results - 28.03% patients were not aware about the medicines taken, 29.90% patients were unacquainted about dose and route of administration whereas 32.71% patients were unfamiliar about frequency of administration of medicines. 53.27% patients were unaware about precautions to be taken while consuming medicines. 58.68% & 12.67% patients consumed amlodipine & atenolol respectively. In 16.43% patients, atenolol + amlodipine combination therapy was prescribed. Amongst 214 patients 12, 58 & 144 showed high, medium & low adherence respectively. No significant difference was found on gender basis at any level of adherence. Conclusion- In this study, physicians given preference to amlodipine than other antihypertensive drugs. However, thiazide is a first line drug in stage 1 hypertension, recommended by JNC VII guideline. This indicates that there is need of creating awareness about current management of hypertension to clinicians by organizing various workshops. We observed only 5.60% patients showed high adherence to antihypertensive therapy. Therefore educational strategies must be carried out for physicians focusing on causes for nonadherence to antihypertensive medications. Also raising patient trust in their physicians may improve patient motivation to prescribed medication.