Abstract
Background: Hypertension (HTN) is a serious public health problem. Good control of the disease has always been considered to be essential for reducing its morbidity and mortality. Poor adherence to treatment is the single most important reason for uncontrolled blood pressure, serious complications, and wastage of health-care resources.

Aims and Objectives: This study aims to assess the antihypertensive medication adherence level among hypertensive study participants, and identify and evaluate the barriers to antihypertensive medication adherence.

Materials and Methods: A hospital-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in tertiary care medical college hospital in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, involving 332 patients and the collected data were presented as means (standard deviations) and percentages. Comparison of data was performed using Pearson’s Chi-square test. For all statistical analyses, commercially available computer program was used.

Results: Among 332 study participants having age range of 31–78 years with a mean age of 57.49 ± 9.20 years, female (approx. 60%) were more than male (40%) participants. About 96.7% of respondents were aware that HTN could cause severe consequences with regard to their health and daily activity but more than half were taking medium salt (56.0%) and more than one-third (32.8%) were taking fatty rich diet. Only one-fourth (25.6%) had good medication adherence. Male participants (34.8%) were more adherent to medication than female (20.2%) and this was statistically significant with P = 0.003.

Conclusion: Around 3/4th of study participants (72.9%) were poorly adherent to antihypertensive medication. Hence, there should be improvement in awareness for both the patients and the care providers.

Key words: Adherence; Antihypertensive drugs; Blood pressure