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Adherence to antihypertensive drug treatment and Morinsky test

Walter Gaston Espeche, Martin Rogelio Salazar

Around the word, the level of control of hypertension is low. Lack of adherence is an important obstacle to hypertension control within the community. Evaluating the adherence of an individual patient could be a challenge for a physician. In this revision, we analyze the utility of self-reference questionnaires to accomplish this task. The WHO estimates that the prevalence of non-adherence to antihypertensive medication is between 30 and 50%. Between indirect methods, the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) is a simple test, is a low-cost, easy and that has been widely validated for different chronic diseases and can be used to evaluate the adherence to antihypertensive drugs in real-world settings. The 8-item scale was originally studied on hypertensive patients and the results revealed it to be a reliable tool that showed significant correlation with BP control. The prevalence of adherence differs depending on countries and regions; it may also be due to cultural, socio-economical and ethnic differences. Thus, in order to know the epidemiology of each country it is necessary to design local strategies aimed at improving the level of adherence on patients in the "real world" setting. The MMAS-8 test reliable approach that can help practitioners to estimate the level of adherence within their patients. It could also provide some clues regarding the mechanism that generates lack of adherence, improving the possibility to select a specific strategy for each patient.