Compliance and the benefit/risk relationship of antihypertensive treatment.

Compliance is defined as a patient's behavior in terms of taking prescribed medication, following diets, or executing medically recommended lifestyle changes. Furthermore, compliance measures the extent to which a person's behavior coincides with medical or health advice. The measurement of compliance over time is still a problem. The recently developed medication monitors, however, enable precise documentation of the taking of pills out of the container over long time periods. Long-term compliance with antihypertensive treatments is, referring to the literature, about 50%. The causes of partial compliance are not yet well known. Partial compliance is often accompanied by reduced benefit, e.g., poor blood pressure control. There are even strong arguments that partial compliance increases the risks of treatment, especially with beta-blockers. Thus, the traditional physicians' nonperception of patients' partial compliance is no longer acceptable, as partial compliance has a negative impact on the benefit/risk ratio.