International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences | October 2017 | Vol 5 | Issue 10 Page 4234 International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences Afaya A et al. Int J Res Med Sci. 2017 Oct;5(10):4234-4241 www.msjonline.org pISSN 2320-6071 | eISSN 2320-6012 Original Research Article Patients’ adherence to antimalarial medication; self-report of patients at the Volta regional hospital of Ho, Ghana Agani Afaya 1 *, Solomon Mohammed Salia 1 , Frederick Yaw Opare 1 , Samira Ali 1 , Richard Adongo Afaya 2 INTRODUCTION Malaria is a major cause of illness and death in Ghana, particularly among children and pregnant women. In 2006, malaria accounted for 38.6% of all outpatient illnesses and 36.9% of all admissions in health facilities. Malaria prevalence per thousand populations was 171 and 2,835 malaria-attributable deaths (all ages) representing 19% of all deaths that were recorded. 1 In Ghana, as well as globally, malaria control programmes are threatened by the development of drug resistance to mono therapies necessitating revisions of treatment policies. In this regard, in 2002 Ghana initiated the process of using artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) following world health organization (WHO) recommendations for all countries experiencing resistance to mono-therapies in the treatment of falciparum malaria. In 2004, Ghana changed its anti- malaria drug policy selecting Artesunate-Amodiaquine 1 Department of Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Health and Allied Sciences, HO, Ghana 2 Department of Surgery, Tamale West Hospital P. O. Box 1714, Northern Region, Ghana Received: 17 July 2017 Accepted: 18 August 2017 *Correspondence: Agani Afaya, E-mail: aagani@uhas.edu.gh Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Background: Despite the advancement in malaria treatments and management; malaria morbidity and mortality is still on the increase. This phenomenon has been mostly attributed to the emergence and transmission resistance of the plasmodium parasite to drugs; which is as a result of non-adherence to anti-malaria medication. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess patients’ adherence to anti-malarial medications and the factors influencing their adherence in the Volta regional hospital. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was employed. Convenience sampling technique was used in recruiting respondents. Data were collected within a period of 8 weeks from April to May 2017. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics in the form of frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviations which was generated by the use of IBM statistical package for social sciences version 23. Results: The average age of respondents surveyed for this study was 32.27±11.09 ranging from of 19 to 68 years. Majority (51.7%) of respondents were females and 76.7% of them being Christians. The study findings revealed that 36.6% of patient were completely adherent to anti-malarial medication. Over 90% of respondents agreed that the malarial medication had bad taste and it was an unpleasant feeling for them taking it. Conclusions: Poor adherence to antimalaria medications could play a role in the future development of drug resistance. As such, identifying ways to improve anti-malarial compliance will help mitigate drug resistance. Therefore, further studies should be carried out on ways to improve patients’ adherence to antimalarial medication. Keywords: Anti-malarial medication, Adherence, Artemisinin-based combination therapy DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20174552