Abstract:
The purposes of this descriptive correlational study were to examine the medication adherence and to investigate the relationships between sex, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, social support, and anti-coagulant medication adherence. One hundred and twenty-one out-patients with valvular replacement aged 18-59 years old, taking anti-coagulant medication were recruited in the surgery heart clinic at the Central Chest Institute, the Police General Hospital, and Phramongkutklao Hospital by a multistage random sampling. Questionnaires were composed of demographic information, perceived susceptibility to regimen, perceived severity to regimen, perceived benefits to regimen, perceived barriers to regimen, social support, and anti coagulant medication adherence questionnaire. All questionnaires were tested for content validities by five panel of experts, and the reliabilities were .76, .76, .79, .80, .79, and .76, respectively. Descriptive statistics (e.g., percent, mean, and standard deviation), t-test, and Pearsons Product Moment Correlation were used to analyze data. The major findings were as follows: 1. More than half (55.4%) of subjects were females with the age between 49 and 59 years. The mean age was 48.21 years (SD = 8.30). Mean scores of perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, social support, and perceived barriers were 2.66 (SD = 0.25), 2.68 (SD = 0.38), 2.85 (SD = 0.30), 3.09 (SD = 0.54), and 1.60 (SD = 0.56), respectively. 2. Mean score of anti - coagulant medication adherence in valvular replacement patients was at a very good level (X̅ = 3.64, SD = 0.21) 3. There was no significant relationship between sex and anti-coagulant medication adherence in valvular replacement patients at the level of .05 (r[subscript bis] = -.050 , p < .585). Whereas, there was no significant relationship between gender and anti-coagulant medication adherence in valvular replacement patients at the level of .05 (t = -.547, p >.05). 4. There were positively significant relationships between perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, social support, and anti-coagulant medication adherence in valvular replacement patients at the level of .05 (r = .220, .207, .195, and .368, respectively). 5. There was negatively significant relationship between perceived barriers and anti-coagulant medication adherence in valvular replacement patients at the level of .05 (r = -.238).