Stroke Awareness and Drug Adherence among Adult Hypertensives in a Tertiary Health Care Centre

Abstract

Stroke is rated as the second leading cause of death worldwide. Stroke is mostly a preventable neurological disease because many of its risk factors such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus and smoking can be prevented either by lifestyle modification or by pharmaco-therapeutic interventions. Effective therapy for stroke prevention involves the use of antihypertensive therapy since antihypertensive medications is key in achieving controlled blood pressure. This is a cross-sectional study of 130 participants from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Nigeria conducted between August and September 2016. The results showed that 90.8% of the study population knew what a stroke was. Out of the 130 participants, the results showed that 70% were nonadherent to their antihypertensive medication, and among those classified as non-adherent, 45.4% were classified as low adherent. This study showed that a significant predictor of stroke awareness was the level of patient education (p=0.01, OR=0.143, 95%CI= [0.030-0.682]).  A significant predictor of high adherence to antihypertensive medications in this study was the duration of been hypertensive (p=0.035, OR=0.377, 95%CI = [0.153-0.934]). Finally, a significant predictor of optimal blood pressure control was the level of adherence (p=0.01, OR=0.523, 95%CI= [0.318-0.861]).  The outcome of this study underscores the need to enhance the level of formal education of the populace.