Alqallaf S M
University of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bahrain
Title: Bahraini hypertensive patients satisfaction and experience with the use of their antihypertensive medications: Exploratory study
Biography
Biography: Alqallaf S M
Abstract
Patients’ satisfaction of their medications is a major issue in leaving a positive impact on their experience with their illness and treatment. Consequently this would affect medication compliance. Negative medications’ satisfaction might result from adverse drug reaction (ADR). Another cause might be the absence of proper patient’s counseling on proper use, action and reaction of medications. Antihypertensive medications have a wide range of ADRs that might be mild needing only monitoring or severe necessitating medication discontinuation. Absence of proper medication counseling might lead to drug discontinuation even if the ADR is mild. The aim of this study is to explore the Bahraini hypertensive patients’ satisfaction and experience with the use of their medications and factors affecting this. This study also aims at exploring incidence and severity of the ADRs of the antihypertensive medications experienced by patients. Literature search using PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholars was conducted. Additionally, structured interviews conducted for 100 hypertensive patients from Bahrain hospitals and relatives. It was found that headache and fatigue are the most common (46%) experienced side effect followed by dry mouth (36%), diarrhea or constipation (36%) and impaired vision (32%). Additionally, it was found that most of the participants (37%) start to suffer from the ADR 6 months after initiation of their medications. Moreover, most of the participants (91%) found to be satisfied with their medications despite their ADRs while only 9% of them are not. Antihypertensive medications are accompanied with a lot of ADR but their incidence and severity varies. The majority of the ADRs reported in this study were mild and do not affect patients’ daily routine or threaten their life. The positive patients’ satisfaction and experience with their medication might indicate good pharmacist/physician monitoring and counseling. This role needs to be emphasized and enriched even more.