Abstract

Background: Poor therapeutic adherence has disastrous consequences for the patient and the health-care system as a whole. In patients, poorly controlled blood pressure facilitates the occurrence of cardiovascular complications. Adherence to therapy is more central to good clinical outcomes than the improvement of treatment efficiency, reason why it is impor- tant to identify risk factors of poor therapeutic adherence to ameliorate current interventions; hence, enabling the health system attain its goals.
Objective: To assess the level of therapeutic adherence to antihypertensive treatment and to identify factors associated to poor observance among patients with hypertension in Garoua city, North Cameroon.
Materials and Methods: The patients were randomly and consecutively selected at the consultation services of the Medico-Social Centre of the National Social Insurance Fund in Garoua. Data were collected using self-administered semi-structured questionnaire that included the Girerd X compliance test. Result: In total 210 patients were enrolled into the study. Of them, 12.9% of patients followed up their treatment correctly, 52.9% had minor observance problems, and 34.3% had a poor therapeutic adherence to antihypertensive drugs. The determining factors of poor adherence were the presence of complications of high blood pressure (p = 0.002; odds ratio [OR] = 0.198), the presence of a handicap (p = 0.040; OR = 0.295), and a low level of education (p = 0.008). Conclusion: Adherence to antihypertensive drug treatment is poor within our population of study. It is therefore impor- tant to emphasize on therapeutic education initiatives in our environment to limit the progression of hypertension, thus, minimizing the occurrence of complications because of high blood pressure and consequently the associated economic burden.