Health Beliefs and Medication Adherence in Omanis With Hypertension

Abstract

Patients' beliefs are important consideration to improve medication adherence. Clinically, patients' beliefs should be assessed, and strategies to improve medication adherence should incorporate beliefs as a key component to improve antihypertensive medication adherence. Patient education and counseling regarding hypertension and necessity and side effects of medications are important to maximize positive beliefs and improve medication adherence.

Association Between Medication Literacy and Medication Adherence Among Patients With Hypertension

“…In our study, the dimensions of attitude and behavior in medication literacy as well as annual incomes for hypertensive patients were found to be independent predictors associated with medication adherence. A range of studies have examined patients’ attitudes toward hypertension and their medication treatment or health beliefs about hypertension in relation to adherence, and the results were consistent with our study (Boima et al, 2015; Kang et al, 2015; Al-Noumani et al, 2018). Fewer concerns about medication (Boima et al, 2015), stronger and positive beliefs about hypertension, self-perceived disease severity, and medication necessity (Lo et al, 2016; Jande et al, 2017; Al-Noumani et al, 2018), as well as good self-perceived health status (Kang et al, 2015) were found to be associated with higher adherence.…”

“…For patients with hypertension, lifetime and persistent antihypertensive therapy is one of the most effective ways to achieve ideal blood pressure levels (Sabaté, 2003). In addition, it has been confirmed that suboptimal blood pressure control is closely associated with patients’ poor adherence or nonadherence to antihypertensive drugs (Morisky et al, 2008; Abegaz et al, 2017; Al-Noumani et al, 2018; Beune et al, 2019; Uchmanowicz et al, 2019). Patients with poor adherence were found to be at 1.417 times more likely to have uncontrolled hypertension than those with good adherence (Xue et al, 2019).…”

“…These include socio-demographic factors (Abegaz et al, 2017; Nurhussein et al, 2018; Fatani et al, 2019; Uchmanowicz et al, 2019), such as gender, age, education level, occupational status, or even race; socio-economic status, such as annual income and medical insurance (Boima et al, 2015; Nielsen et al, 2017); and family disease history, number of prescribed drugs, comorbidity, and duration of hypertension as clinical disease-related factors (Choi et al, 2018; Williams et al, 2018; Uchmanowicz et al, 2019). Furthermore, psychosocial factors also influence medication adherence, such as depressed emotion, perceived severity of disease, self-rated health, perceived symptoms, and self-efficacy (Al-Noumani et al, 2018; Asgari et al, 2019). Knowledge of hypertension and patients’ literacy (Boima et al, 2015; Shirindi et al, 2016; Pan et al, 2017) were also found to be predictors of medication adherence.…”

“…There are four dimensions of knowledge, attitude, skill, and behavior covered by medication literacy that were extracted from its definition and connotation through our theoretical research on medication (Zhong et al, 2016; Pouliot et al, 2018); every dimension is key to ensuring patients’ safe use of medication. Correct and adequate knowledge about hypertension and its medication treatment along with positive perceptions and attitudes toward disease therapy for hypertensive patients is fundamental to safe medication use and persistent adherence (Jande et al, 2017; Al-Noumani et al, 2018; Amer et al, 2018). In addition, appropriate skills to calculate and process patient-specific information about their medications are prerequisites for making informed medication and health decisions to achieve safe and effective medication behavior (Foster et al, 2018).…”

The Development and Psychometric Assessment of Chinese Medication Literacy Scale for Hypertensive Patients (C-MLSHP)

“…In Pouliot's study, patient's beliefs and personal circumstances were considered into the medication literacy conceptualization, it was a two-way dialogue between patients and their healthcare providers about the benefits, risks, and alternatives of treatment, in order to achieve optimal goal and outcomes of individual's medication literacy (Pouliot et al, 2018). Specifically, for hypertensive patients, their beliefs and attitudes to the severity of hypertension disease, to the necessity of antihypertensive taking and of the treatment plan discussion with healthcare providers, as well as their self-efficacy were playing a critical role in their adherence to antihypertensive drug taking and self-management (Al-Noumani et al, 2018;Al-Noumani et al, 2019;Qvarnström et al, 2019). Therefore, hypertensive patients' attitudes, including their beliefs related to hypertension severity and susceptibility, their beliefs to the effectiveness or necessity of taking antihypertensive medication, as well as their self-efficacy in hypertension disease management, were incorporated into the conceptualization and operationalization of hypertensive patients' medication literacy.…”