Creencias en sintomas y adherencia al tratamiento farmacologico en pacientes con hipertension

Abstract

The aim of this cross-sectional analytic study was to investigate the impact of the beliefs in symptoms related to the increase of the arterial tension, on the medication adherence in hypertensive patients. 163 hypertense patients with pharmacological treatment participate in the study. The presence of beliefs and the medication adherence of the patients was evaluated. The results indicate a strong association between reports of beliefs and reports of nonadherence. These findings support the importance of considering beliefs about symptoms as a variable that need to be consider in studies about adherence in hypertensive patients, and the convenience to incorporate the evaluation of the presence of this kind of beliefs into the protocols of adherence analysis for this chronic disease.