IJCS | Volume 33, Nº2, March / April 2020

123 Figure 1 - Answers to Morisky Therapeutic Adherence Scale (n = 164). Araújo & Aras Junior Therapeutic adherence and resistant hypertension Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2020; 33(2):121-130 Original Article Categorical variables are presented by absolute numbers and percentages. The patients were compared according to the degree of therapeutic adherence by the one-way ANOVA test for variables with normal distribution, and Kruskal- Wallis, followed by Dunn’s post-test, when the variables were not normally distributed. Categorical variables were also compared by the distribution of events using Fisher’s or Chi-Square test. Comparison between two groups was done with unpaired Student’s t-test (with Welch’s correctionwhen necessary) when they presented normal distribution, or with the nonparametric Mann- Whitney test for variables without normal distribution. A significant value of p < 0.05 was considered. Prism software version 7.04 (GraphPad Software, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA) was used. Ethical considerations This project is an addendum to the project “Clinical and Metabolic Evaluation in Resistant Systemic Arterial Hypertension”, inserting itself in its specific objectives. The project was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee of Hospital Ana Nery, protocol number 138371, on 11/05/2012. All patients enrolled in the study signed an Informed Consent. Results The study included216 individuals,whowere classified according to the Morisky Therapeutic Adherence Scale. Of these, 136 (83%) had good therapeutic adherence and 28 (17%) had poor adherence. The percentage of each test response can be seen in figure 1. The epidemiological, anthropometric and clinical characteristics of these individuals can be seen in table 1, while the prevalence of comorbidities and complications can be seen in table 2. By comparing the epidemiological and clinical characteristics between the groups divided according to the degree of therapeutic adherence, there is no statistical significance for the variables considered (table 1), similarly for complications and comorbidities (table 2). In the group with good therapeutic adherence, 37.83% of the individuals had controlled BP (normal or prehypertension), whereas of the individuals with poor adherence, 26.92% had controlled BP. Despite the differences between the groups, there was no statistical significance (p = 0.2921) (table 3). The antihypertensive drugs most commonly used by the individuals in the sample were amlodipine (68.91%) [CCB], losartan (66.37%) [ARB], hydrochlorothiazide (47.7%), chlorthalidone (44.34%) [thiazide diuretics] and