Assessment of Adherence to Lifestyle Modification among Hypertensive Patients in Saudi Arabia

This study assess how well hypertensive patients adhered to lifestyle modifications and it identifies the barriers to compliance with lifestyle modifications. It employed an online-based cross-sectional study among hypertensive patients in the east, west, middle, north, and south regions of Saudi Arabia. The study included 1135 participants, 55.8% of them were females and 44.2% of them were males. 25.2% of participants aged between 41- 50 years old. 33.4% of participants had hypertension for less than one year, 28.2% for 1- 5 years and 23.8% for more than 10 years. 56.5% of participants take anti-hypertensive medications. 32.6% have 3 meals per day 27% have less than three meals and 21.9% have 4 meals per day. 41.1% of the participants exercise. 15.1% of the participants were smokers. Medication adherence was significantly associated with age, BMI, marital status, educational level, occupation, and hypertension (P <0.05). Exercise adherence was significantly associated with age, BMI, marital status, gender, educational level, and job but not with duration of hypertension. Diet adherence was significantly associated with age, BMI, marital status, educational level, and duration of hypertension (P <0.05). Smoking was significantly associated with participants’ gender, age, educational level, job, and duration of diabetes (P <0.05). In conclusion, few hypertensive patients practice healthy lifestyles. Age, level of education, occupation, length of illness, and marital status of respondents were found to be important predictors of effective lifestyle modification strategies.