ABSTRACT
Background@#The treatment of chronic illnesses commonly includes the long-term use of pharmacotherapy. Almost half of patients do not enjoy the full benefits of treatment because of poor adherence. The Universal Health Care Act advocates actively improving the health literacy, of every Filipino, motivating them to strictly adhere to the recommended treatment@*Objective@#This study aimed to determine the barriers to adherence of maintenance medication intake among hypertensive and diabetic patients in the outpatient clinic setting@*Methods@#A cross sectional study design, using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) consisting of 8 questions, with a Cronbach alpha of 0.83 (Highly reliable). Simple random sampling was used for sampling@*Results@#Out of 90 patients, 54 (60.0%) patients were adherent with their medications, while 36 (40.0%) were non-adherent. Collected social demographic profiles were analyzed to determine the barriers to the medication adherence@*Conclusion@#Forgetfulness, missing medication intake because they feel worse, or because they already feel fine are the identified barriers to adherence to maintenance medication intake among hypertensive and diabetic patients in the outpatient clinic setting. In this monocentric study, the focus was mainly on patient-related factors contributing to non-adherence. Future researches should assess also the Physician and the Health system related factors