IJCS | Volume 33, Nº3, May / June 2020

274 Table 1 - Characteristics of the sample by sex Women n = 444 Men n = 408 p-value Age (years) 62 ± 13 61 ± 12 0.346 SBP (mmHg) 138 ± 18 139 ± 18 0.458 DBP (mmHg) 82 ± 11 84 ± 12 0.002 BMI (Kg/m 2 ) 29.7 ± 6.5 28.8 ± 5.0 0.149 Controlled hypertension (%) 43.0 46.1 0.369 Hypercholesterolemia (%) 35.1 44.1 0.001 Diabetes mellitus (%) 21.8 29.2 0.026 Smoking (%) 12.8 13.2 0.553 Previous cardiovascular event* (%) 5.8 8.0 0.597 Number of antihypertensive drugs 1.6 ± 0.8 1.6 ± 0.8 0.174 Fixed-dose drug combinations(%) 16.0 14.4 0.541 Adherence (%) 63.1 61.3 0.444 *acute myocardial infarction, stroke; SBP: systolic blood pressure; DBP: diastolic blood pressure. Table 2 - Characteristics of patients divided into controlled or uncontrolled hypertension Controlled hypertension n = 379 Uncontrolled hypertension n = 473 p-value Age (years) 62 ± 15 60 ± 13 0.043 BMI (Kg/m 2 ) 28.1 ± 5.5 31.0 ± 6.4 < 0.001 Hypercholesterolemia (%) 37.2 42.2 0.137 Diabetes mellitus(%) 22.2 29.3 0.018 Smoking (%) 11.4 15.0 0.228 Previous cardiovascular event* (%) 5.3 9.5 0.018 Number of antihypertensive drugs 1.7 ± 0.8 1.5 ± 0.8 0.002 Fixed-dose drug combinations(%) 14.8 9.8 0.027 Adherence (%) 69.3 53.3 < 0.001 BMI: body mass index. Espeche et al. Adherence to antihypertensive therapy in Argentina Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2020; 33(3):272-277 Original Article characteristics. All individuals completed high school. Ten patients were excluded due to lack of consent or blood pressure measurements. Clinical characteristics of the remaining 852 patients are summarized in Table 1. There were no differences in age, systolic BP, number of drugs used, BMI, previous cardiovascular events, smokingandcontrol of hypertension betweenmen andwomen. Global adherence to treatment was also not different between men and women, 61.3% and 63.1%, respectively (p = 0.444). Table 2 shows that individuals who had controlled hypertension were more adherent to treatment (69.3% vs. 53.3%, p < 0.001). Also, they used more fixed-doses combinations of antihypertensive drugs (p < 0.001) and had lower BMI (p < 0.001). Inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin system (angiotensin receptor antagonists and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors) were the most frequently used antihypertensives (46.8%), followed by beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers and diuretics (6.9%, 2.4%, and 1.0% respectively). Diuretics were the most commonly used drugs as the second drug (22.1%), and 13.5% of the patients used three or more antihypertensive drugs. The most frequent reasons for lack of adherence were carelessness in the time of intake and forgetfulness of the medication intake. Remarkably, only a minority was not adherent due to adverse drug effects (Table 3). As shown in Table 4, the non-adherent group was younger, had higher BP values, lower number of never- smokers, andhigher frequency of previous cardiovascular events. Although there were no differences in BMI between adherent and non-adherent subjects, more obese