Hypertension confirmation and blood pressure control rates in epidemiological surveys

Abstract

Background: Scarce knowledge about hypertension confirmation and control after a single blood pressure (BP) measurement is available. The objective of this study was to evaluate hypertension confirmation and control rates after 6-year follow-up in a population-based cohort.

Methods: A cohort of 1748 participants representative of a Spanish population received standardized BP measurements. Systolic BP>or=140 mmHg or diastolic BP>or=90 mmHg was found in 617 participants. Three hundred and thirty-four of them had no history of hypertension and the remaining 283 had been previously diagnosed or received antihypertensive treatment. All were advised to consult their physicians. We discarded for follow-up 109 participants with already well-controlled hypertension (27.8% of all hypertensive participants). We followed 583 participants (94.5% of the cohort) for 6 years (14 died and 20 were lost to follow-up).

Results: The diagnosis of hypertension was confirmed during follow-up in 139 (44.4%) of those with no previously known hypertension, making the overall prevalence for the cohort equal to 30.4% (n=531). The hypertension control rate at the end of follow-up was 50.1%, whereas it was 27.9% at baseline. Diabetes was the only factor to be independently associated with good control of hypertension.

Conclusion: Six years after a single-occasion blood pressure measurement, hypertension was confirmed in almost half of the participants with systolic BP>or=140 mmHg or diastolic BP>or=90 mmHg and no history of hypertension. Hypertension control achieved with this screening procedure is almost double that observed in the baseline examination, and is highest among diabetic participants.