Poor Adherence to Antihypertensive Therapy Increases Stroke Risk

Poor adherence to antihypertensive therapy increases short- and long-term risk of stroke among hypertensive patients, according to aEuropean Heart Journal study using records from Finnish national registers. At 2 and 10 years after starting continuous antihypertensive medication, nonadherent patients had 3.81 and 3.01 times higher odds of dying from a stroke compared with adherent patients. The odds for stroke hospitalization was 2.74 at year 2 and 1.71 at year 10 for nonadherent patients. Associations between nonadherence and stroke followed a dose–response pattern: the poorer the adherence, the greater the risk of death and hospitalization due to stroke.