Adherence to antihypertensive medication in the United Arab Emirates : patient and doctor perspectives

Abstract

Approximately half of the patients taking medication for hypertension have problems following the prescribed regime to the extent that they do not derive optimal clinical benefit. Prior to this study, there was little data on adherence in the Arabian Gulf region and there was no Arabic language instrument for measuring self-reported adherence. This thesis describes the design and validation of an Arabic / English self-reporting measure for medication adherence. This instrument was used to study the concurrent and predictive validity of the self-reported adherence measure, changes in self-reported adherence and to compare the doctor and patient perspectives on adherence.