Nonadherence to Antihypertensive Treatment Is Associated with Family Support in Bangladesh

There are substantial bodies of evidence that social relationships are strong and supportive to the health of individuals. For family and social support to be health promoting, it must provide both a sense of belonging and intimacy and must help people to be more competent and self-efficacious. To observe the role of family support on adherence to antihypertensive treatment we conducted a cross-sectional survey among randomly selected 120 hypertensive patients, from two sites: Rajshahi Medical College Hospital and a private clinic in Rajshahi, Bangladesh. The patients were taking antihypertensive treatment for more than 6 months or admitted with hypertensive target organ damage and were aged at least 35 years. Data regarding patient’s personal information; adherence to treatment; family support in terms of reminder to take medication, accompanying to hospital/physician, monetary support if needed were asked. 85% study patients were non-adherent to treatment. We found 35.0% patients were never asked by their family members about their disease. 70% of the patients have to depend on their family for the money to buy drugs or to visit physician in some point of their treatment procedure. In addition, 73% patients needed accompanying person for seeking treatment. Hypertensive persons were mainly supported by their Children and spouses. Those who got family support were more adherent to treatment. On the contrary, those who needed accompanying person to go to hospital were 3.54 times more likely to develop non-adherence (95% CI 1.04 – 11.99). These suggest family members of the patient should also be involved in the treatment procedure. There should be motivational programs for the patients and their family members emphasizing the disease process, importance of controlling blood pressure, side-effects of the drug, complications of untreated hypertension, modifiable life style and the dosing of antihypertensives.

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