AHA High Blood Pressure Toolkit

15 MEDICATION ADHERENCE In Practice Consider the cultural and social contexts and health literacy of your patients. Create an encouraging, blame-free environment. Talk openly about expectations and goals. Listen to their concerns. Answer their questions. Improving adherence to antihypertensive medication Adherence to antihypertensive therapy is suboptimal, with only 20% of patients having sufficiently high adherence to achieve the benefits found in clinical trials. Use strategies that have been found to be effective in improving adherence , such as the following: • Educate patients about hypertension, its consequences and potential side effects of medication • Collaborate with patients to establish goals of therapy and plan of care • Prescribe medication as once-daily dosing • Integrate pill-taking into routine activities of daily living with support tools such as reminders, pillboxes, packaging and other aids • Use fixed-dose combination agents when available • Use medication adherence scales to facilitate identification of barriers • Recognize patients for achieving treatment goals Only 20% of patients have sufficiently high adherence to antihypertensive therapy to achieve the benefits found in clinical trials.