Medication Adherence and its Related Factors among Patients with Coronary Artery Disease

The present study was done to assess the medication adherence and its related factors among patients with coronary artery disease. The objectives of the study were, to assess the medication adherence level, to determine the related factors of medication adherence, to find out the relationship between medication adherence and its related factors, to find out the association between selected socio demographic and clinical variable and medication adherence among patients with CAD. The sample consisted of 100 patients with CAD selected by convenience sampling technique. The design used was descriptive research design with quantitative approach. The tools used were Structured Questionnaire on socio demographic data, Checklist to assess medication adherence and the factors were assessed using structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the study showed that 77% of the samples were adherent to the medication and 23% were not adherent. Behavioural factors such as smoking after diagnosed as CAD(fisher’s exact test= .000), alcoholism after diagnosed as CAD (fisher’s exact test= .000), practicing exercise(fisher’s exact test= .000), therapy and system related factors such as difficulty in following medication regimen(fisher’s exact test= .000), regular follow-up check-up(fisher’s exact test= .000), support related factors such as someone to accompany during check-up(fisher’s exact test= .000) and someone to remind about the medication(fisher’s exact test= .000) are related factors of medication adherence. Chi-square test and Fisher’s Exact test was used to study the association of variables under study with medication adherence. The analysis showed that medication adherence was significantly associated with marital status (fisher’s exact test= .001) and specific comorbidities (fisher’s exact test= .006). The present study concluded that low proportion (23%) of the patients were found to be non-adherent. Essential steps should be taken to enhance the medication adherence among CAD patients. Appropriate health education about long term complication of CAD should be provided