[Family support of treatment compliance in essential arterial hypertension]. / Apoyo familiar en el apego al tratamiento de la hipertensión arterial esencial.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between family support and drug therapy compliance in essential hypertension. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A case-control study was conducted between May and December 1999, at Mexican Institute of Social Security Regional Hospital in Durango, among 80 hypertensive subjects; 40 were cases and 40 controls. Cases were subjects who complied with drug therapy and controls were those who did not, matched by age, gender, schooling, hypertensive disease duration, and marital status. Differences were analyzed using the chi-squared test and Student's t test. Odds ratios were obtained to assess the strength of associations. Subjects diagnosed with secondary hypertension or other chronic diseases were excluded. RESULTS: There were no differences in sociodemographic variables, therapy modality, and knowledge about hypertensive disease between cases and controls. Thirty-one (77.5%) compliant subjects, and 31 (77.5%) non-compliant subjects had arterial blood pressure values in normal ranges (p = 0.003). A strong and independent relationship between family support and therapy compliance was found (OR 6.9, 95% CI 2.3-21.1). CONCLUSIONS: Therapy compliance is strongly related with family support provided to the hypertensive patient. The English version of this paper is available at: http://www.insp.mx/salud/index.html