Compliance in hypertensive patients attending an Athens hospital

Hypertension remains a silent disease. Symptoms occur several years since onset. Control remains poor in diagnosed patients. Only 20-22% of the patients control their condition.Aim: To investigate patients’ compliance with their drug treatment and any relationship of other factor with blood pressure values.Material and method: An exploratory study of 109 patients at a hospital in Athens was undertaken. Data collection was performed with a structured questionnaire. Answers were recorded by the researchers. Factors such as the duration of the drug treatment, BP values, salt consumption, exercise frequency, smoking as well as demographic data were recorded. SPSS v.15 was implemented to process data and a regression analysis was performed. Findings were considered as statistically significant at p value <0,05.Results: None of the patients was found to have an optimal or normal BP value. A great proportion of our sample were smokers (45%), 82,6% were not exercising at all and another 10,2% admitted they consumed too much salt on daily basis. Most of the participants (77,1%) reported they received their medication according to their physician’s directions. Statistically significant correlations were found between the mean systolic blood pressure values and exercise (rpb=-0,162, p=0,042), compliance with drug treatment (rpb=-0,331, p<0,01), salt consumption (rpb=0,217, p=0,023) and age of participants (rs=0,263, p=0,08).Conclusions: Hypertensive patients in this sample don’t exercise, are overweight and despite receiving hypertensive treatment, there weren’t any normal BP values found.