Abstract:

Background: heart failure about 26 million people globally and its prevalence has been increasing with time. Knowledge and adherence to prescribed pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments determine individual outcomes. However, patients demonstrate difficulty in identifying the purpose of their prescribed medications, name and common side effects. These are associated with non- adherence to the medication, poor health outcomes, higher medical expenses and death.

Methodology: A cross sectional study involved 384 heart failure patients attending Bugando medical outpatient clinic. Convenient sampling method was used after the participant had met the inclusion criteria, every individual had a structured questionnaire filled.

Results and discussion: the mean age was 59.9 years and majority of participants were female 287(74.7%). Patients knowledge on their medications: 71(44.53%) had sufficient knowledge, 143(37.24%) had insufficient knowledge, 66(17.19%) had optimal knowledge and 4 (1.04%) had poor knowledge. Of all 384 who participated in this study, a high number had moderate adherence 195(50.78%), 131(34.11%) had good adherence and 58(15.10%) had poor adherence. We found that, knowledge on side effects was poor by 66.93%. Those who were unemployed, those with primary level and non-formal education were found to have poor knowledge on their medication and this was statistically significant. Surprisingly we noted that patients who were unemployed and those who had non- forma education were found to have good adherence and it was statistically significant.

Conclusion: we found that those low level of formal education were the ones with good adherence to medication despite having low level of medication. But still optimal knowledge is important factor in order to have good adherence to medication. Regular health education sessions should be conducted to increase patient’s knowledge particularly on the side effects. Further studies should be done to determine the way knowledge of a caretaker and their involvement in care influence patient’s adherence.