Some approaches to improving patients’ compliance with antihypertensive pharmacotherapy

Purpose: The purpose of this work was to investigate the impact of usage of a computer program PharmCalculation in the polyclinic on the patients’ compliance. Material and methods: Study group was included 73 AH outpatients whose physicians have been provided with the computer program PharmCalculation. Treatment patterns were observed during two-month period. Afterwards patients were surveyed in order to investigate compliance. Control group consisted of 100 randomly chosen customers of drugstores who were buying antihypertensives. Survey was performed in order to investigate their compliance. Results: 80.8% of patients in the study group were taking antihypertensive drugs regularly. In the Control group, there were 60% of patients who took antihypertensives regularly. Odds' ratio of adherence to treatment was 2.8 in the favor of the study group (95% interval –1.4-5.8). There was an evidence, that usage of antihypertensive drugs in median therapeutic doses raised adherence of patients in the study group to the prescribed pharmacotherapy (p=0.019). Odds' ratio was 4.4 in the favor of usage of median therapeutic doses with 95% confidence interval 1.1-21.8. Conclusion: There is evidence that usage of software PharmCalculation in the polyclinic may improve compliance among hypertensive outpatients.