Background
: Hypertension and diabetes are similar to each other in their courses of disease progress and management, and especially are so when patient compliance is considered in view of long-term prognosis of the diseases and of the concerns in health politics. Though it is not so easy to evaluate compliance objectively and apply to management of diseases, efforts need to be continued for objectification of evaluation of patient compliance. Therefore, this study was performed for identifying trend of treatment survival rate and factors related to compliance of patients with hypertension and/or diabetes.

Methods : One part was by means of review of medical records for detecting treatment survival rated of 641 patients who had visited Koksung-gun Health Center from May 20, 1989 to May 31, 1993. The other was by means of questionnaire and review of records for testing significance of the factors assumed to be related to compliance behaviors in 100 patients who had visited the center from June 1, 1993 to August 31, 1993.

Results : The treatment survival rate of the 641 patients showed rapid decrease in early stage, which was 51.2% and 26.4% two months and one year later from start to treat, respectively. According to diagnosis, the rate showed more rapid decrease with significance in hypertension group. In the questionnaire study of compliance behaviors of 100 patients, the important factors related to patient compliance were cost for each visit, number of days of prescription, medical security, and diagnosis. According to treatment duration, important factors were cost for each visit in the group of less than 1 year, and number of days of prescription and diagnosis in the group of more than 1 year.

Conclusion : Because most of patients cease to be treated in early stage during management of chronic illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes, strategies for the patients to be treated steadily in that stage need to be developed. Especially, it is required to take poor compliance into account in groups of hypertension, heavy cost for each visit, low number of days of prescription, and medical insurance.