26. Ismael et al.

2015 [31]

Iraq

To assess the level of compliance to

treatment and identified factors contributing to poor compliance

N = 200

Purposive sampling was used to select participants among all eligible hypertensive patients in a general teaching hospital

Cross-sectional

55/61.7

Major factor for MNA was forgetfulness. There was a significant association between high level of adherence and age group of > 65 years (p = 0.000), male gender (p = 0.003), no formal education (p = 0.000), and duration of hypertension less than 10 years (p = 0.003). Also there was significant relation between adherence and benefit of treatment, barrier of treatment, severity of disease, susceptibility to complication and reminder by advice from nurses (strongest predictor)

27. Shima et al.

2013 [51]

Malaysia

To explore patients’ experiences with their illnesses and the reasons which influenced them in not following hypertensive care recommendations

N = 2

Purposive sampling from patients attending follow-up at primary health clinics

Qualitative

Most of the reasons given for not taking antihypertensive medication were side effects or fear of the side effects of antihypertensive medication, patients’ attitudes, lack of information from health care professionals and insufficient social support

28. Ramli et al.

2012 [54]

Malaysia

To assess adherence to medications by adult patients undergoing hypertensive treatment

N = 653

Random sampling method to select hypertensive patients from 7 primary health care clinics

62.8

Cross-sectional multicentre study

46.6/43.7

Female patients were found to be more likely to be adherent than male patients (OR = 1.38; 95% CI: 1.00 - 1.90; p = 0.05]). Patients from the Malay (OR = 1.68; 95% CI: 1.03 - 2.73) and Chinese ethnic group (OR = 2.64; 95% CI: 1.52 - 4.58) were also more likely to adhere, compared to patients from the Indian subgroups. The mean number of drugs that patients were taking was higher in non-adherers (3.67) than in adherers (3.17 [t = 3.81, df = 651; p = 0.001])