Compliance or non-compliance of hypertensive adults to hypertension management at three primary healthcare day clinics in Tshwane.

The objective of this article was to report on the rate of compliance to medication, sodium use and appointment keeping of hypertensive adults who are attending primary healthcare clinics in Tshwane. Despite the availability of effective management of hypertension globally, non-compliance to management still exists. This article reports on the hypertensive adult’s compliance to medication, sodium use and appointment keeping. The design was a cross-sectional descriptive study. The sample was n=101 hypertensive patients from three primary healthcare clinics. Structured interviews were used to gather the data. The results indicated a variation in compliance rate depending on the question asked. When investigating whether the participants received enough medication on their last visit to the clinic, 98% said that they received enough medication to last them a month (Nkosi 2008:130). However, the appointment-keeping scale revealed that 23% of the participants reported that they left the clinic without prescribed medication or missed an appointment. When, using the Hill-Bone Compliance Scale, individuals were asked a question using the verb forgetting, 9 out of 10 would answer ‘no’, but when the verb decide was used to determine compliance, 6 out of 10 would admit to deciding not to take their medication sometimes. In terms of sodium use, 33% showed good compliance and 44% low compliance (Nkosi 2008:138). Compliance with regard to taking hypertension medication was 70%, which is good. This study recommends that compliance to hypertension management be assessed by asking questions specifically for sodium use, medication and appointment keeping as it was clear from the findings of this study that a person would comply with appointment keeping but not take medication daily as prescribed or not use sodium as recommended.