People who fail to take medication for their high blood pressure have a significantly increased risk of suffering a stroke and dying from it, a new study has found.

European scientists looked at almost 74,000 people with high blood pressure from 1995 to 2007, comparing those who took their medication properly and those who failed to take it properly.

A person was considered to be taking their medication properly if they adhered to the medication schedule more than 80% of the time.

During the study period, over 2,100 people died from a stroke, while almost 25,000 were hospitalised with a stroke.

The scientists found that those who failed to take their blood pressure medicine properly had almost a four-fold increased risk of dying from a stroke in the second year after they were first prescribed the medication, compared to people who took it properly.

They also had a three-fold increased risk in the tenth year after first being prescribed the medication, compared to those who took it properly.

Furthermore, in the year that a patient died after failing to take their medication, they had an almost six-fold increased risk compared to patients who took their medication properly.

The study also found that those who did not take their medication properly were 2.7 times more likely to be hospitalised with a stroke in the second year after being prescribed the drugs, compared to those adhering to the medication. In the tenth year, the risk was 1.7 times.

"These results emphasise the importance of hypertensive (high blood pressure) patients taking their anti-hypertensive medications correctly in order to minimise their risk of serious complications such as fatal and non-fatal strokes.

"We have also found that there is a dose-response relationship, and the worse someone is at taking their antihypertensive therapy, the greater their risk," explained Dr Kimmo Herttua of the University of Helsinki.

The scientists believe this is the first study to monitor patients over such a long period of time, ‘repeatedly checking how correctly they are taking their medications, and linking the trajectory of adherence with the risk of fatal and non-fatal stroke'.

Details of these findings are published in the European Heart Journal.