Abstract

This study was performed to identify the health behaviors and medication compliances of hypertensive patients in a rural area, from May 1 to July 31, 2001. The subjects were 100 hypertensive patients who were registered at the Health Center in Goeje City. The data was collected by face-to-face interviews with a 25-item questionnaire on health behaviors, and analyzed by the Chi-square test on each variable. The results were as follows: Approximately 76% of the subjects were currently taking drug medication. In the comparison of health behavior rates between male and female, there were statistically significant differences in smoking (p<.000), alcohol(p<.003), low salt diet(p<.014), and the health behavior rates of female were higher than those of male. In the comparison of socioeconomic factors by medication compliance, there was statistically significant difference in sex(p<.001), and the medication compliance rate of female was higher than that of male. In the comparison of subjects' perception by medication compliance, there were statistically significant differences in seriousness of hypertension (p<.001) and medication period for hypertension care (p<.004). The medication compliance rate of the group of subjects who took the threat on their hypertension seriously was higher than that of the group who didn't, and the medication compliance rate of the group who knew that they should take medication for the rest of their life was higher than that of the group who didn't. These results suggest that community health education programs and distribution of information must be emphasized in order to increase medication and to encourage behavior changes for promoting health.