Medication persistence to antihypertensive drug treatment – a cross-sectional study of attitudes towards hypertension and medication in persistent and non-persistent patients

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of the items assessing attitudes towards hypertension in the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (Brief-IPQ).

Brief-IPQ terms	Question number	Measures
Consequences	1	How much the patient thinks hypertension affects his/her life
Timeline	2	For how long the patient believes that the diagnosis of hypertension will affect him/her
Personal control	3	How much control the patient has over his/her symptoms from hypertension
Treatment control	4	How much the patient believes that treatment can prevent future cardiovascular disease
Identity	5	How much the patient experiences symptoms from hypertension
Concern	6	How concerned the patient is about having cardiovascular disease
Understanding	7	How much the patient considers that he/she knows about hypertension
Emotional response	8	How much the patient thinks hypertension affects him/her emotionally

Table 2. Overview of the various subscales assessing attitudes towards medicines from the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ).

BMQ subscales	Measures	Number of questions	Score range	Cronbach’s alfa
BMQ-General
Harm	The harmful nature of drugs in general	4	4–20	0.68
Overuse	The belief that doctors overuse or put too much trust in drugs	4	4–20	0.60
Benefit	The potential benefits of treatment in general	4	4–20	0.70
BMQ-Specific
Necessity	The personal need for drugs to maintain or improve own health	5	5–25	0.84
Concern	The perceived concern about the negative effects of their own use of drugs	5	5–25	0.81

Figure 1. Flow chart of patient inclusion.

Table 3. Patient characteristics in persistent and non-persistent users of antihypertensive medication.

	Persistent users		Non-persistent users		p
Patient characteristics	n	%	n	%
Sex					<0.01
Women	320	89.6	37	10.4
Men	289	81.6	65	18.4
Age					0.36
<65 years	353	84.7	64	15.3
≥65 years	256	87.1	38	12.9
Type 2 diabetes					0.05
Yes	39	76.5	12	23.5
No	570	86.4	90	13.6
Cardiovascular comorbidity					0.61
Yes	30	90.9	3	9.1
No	579	85.4	99	14.6
Native Swede^a					<0.01
Yes	435	88.8	55	11.2
No	159	77.9	45	22.1

Subjects with a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, ischaemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, cerebrovascular disease, or diabetes mellitus were considered to have cardiovascular comorbidity.

^a Data missing in 17 patients.

Table 4. Brief-Illness Perception Questionnaire (Brief-IPQ) terms in persistent and non-persistent medication users of antihypertensive treatment.

	Persistent		Non-persistent
Brief-IPQ terms	n	Median	n	Median	p
Consequences	601	2 (0–5)	95	3 (1–6)	0.02
Timeline	579	6 (4–10)	90	4 (2–8)	<0.01
Personal control	598	6 (4–8)	97	5 (2–8)	0.12
Treatment control	595	7 (5–8)	95	5 (3–8)	<0.01
Identity	599	2 (0–4)	97	2 (0–5)	0.24
Concern	602	4 (2–6)	98	2 (0–6)	0.08
Understanding	603	5 (3–8)	98	5 (3–8)	0.99
Emotional response	601	2 (0–5)	98	2 (0–5)	0.54

Data are presented as median values and interquartile ranges. Significance values by Mann-Whitney U-test.

Table 5. Comparisons of outcomes in the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) between persistent and non-persistent patients.

	Scale score
Test	Persistent	Non-persistent	p
BMQ-General
Harm	10 (8–12)	11 (9–12)	0.07
Overuse	12 (10–14)	13 (11–14)	0.01
Benefit	16 (15–18)	16 (15–17)	0.01
BMQ-Specfic
Necessity	17 (14–19)	16 (11–19)	0.02
Concern	12 (8–15)	12 (9–17)	0.04

Data are shown as medians and interquartiles There were 609 persistent and 102 non-persistent patients.