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Poor adherence to antihypertensive drug treatment is a major reason for insufficient blood pressure control. In this longitudinal study, investigators used data from 21 clinical studies to determine adherence among 4783 patients who were prescribed 1 of 43 once-daily antihypertensive drugs.
Adherence was determined using medication containers that electronically record the date and time of each opening. At 1 year, almost half the patients had stopped treatment altogether (nonpersistence). On any given day, about 10% of scheduled doses were missed (nonexecution). Overall, 95% of patients missed a single dose at least once yearly, half missed a single dose once monthly, and nearly half took drug holidays lasting longer than 3 days at least onc…