RACE - AN EXPLANATION OF PATIENT COMPLIANCE - FACT OR FICTION

This article describes a retrospective study that examines the relatio nship between patient compliance and race among diagnosed hypertensive s in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II). The study reviewed and analyzed the compliance of 403 blacks diagnose d with hypertension. Patient compliance was measured using the frequen cy that patients took their hypertensive medicine. Bivariate analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship with patient complia nce (dependent) and the independent variables (age, education, gender, and smoking). Multiple regression for the black population revealed t hat the age of the person accounted for the most explained variance. A s age increased among blacks, so did compliance. The results may sugge st the need to target school-aged blacks early in order to increase th e awareness and importance of monitoring one's blood pressure. The res ults also may indicate that race is not a marker for other characteris tics (income, education, etc) that might be used to explain the differ ence in the prevalence of hypertension among blacks compared with whit es.