Blood pressure monitoring practices of medicated hypertensive patients followed at primary care health centers of lisbon health region

Trabalho Final de Mestrado Integrado, Ciências Farmacêuticas, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Farmácia, 2014INTRODUCTION The worldwide prevalence of Hypertension is estimated to be 30 to 40% of the total population. In Portugal, 42.4% of adult population is hypertensive. Being a chronic and usually asymptomatic disease, blood pressure (BP) monitoring can promote patients awareness, adherence to medication and other healthy lifestyle behaviours. Nowadays, BP measurements take place not only in the clinical setting as many patients also have monitoring devices at home. This study aims to understand BP monitoring practices concerning frequency and place of measurement, reason for measuring and measuring device. METHODS This study is part of the baseline phase of the HiDia project, an interventional study that aimed to evaluate the effect of an educational and behavioural intervention on the promotion of hypertension control among patients followed-up at the primary care level, in Lisbon region. Non-controlled hypertensive patients were selected from a convenience sample of primary care centres, among a list of patients with systolic blood pressure =140 mmHg or diastolic =90 for individuals without diabetes, and systolic blood pressure =130 mmHg or diastolic =80 when having diabetes mellitus. At the baseline interview, socio- demographic and clinical variables were obtained and held three BP measurements. For the characterization of BP monitoring practices, variables as local, and frequency of BP measurement, as well as reasons and having a measuring device, were collected. It was used R software for different statistical tests performed: Chi-squared test, Student t test and Mann-Whitney test, when the requirements for using Student t test were not fulfilled, and Fisher's exact test. RESULTS Mean SBP values obtained in the face-to-face interview was 141.8 (ñ17.6) and mean DBP was 82.2 (ñ11.2). From the total participants in this study 108 (42.5%) had a controlled BP. Most (54.9%) participants referred to measure BP usually at home. The pharmacy was indicated by 25.9% of the people. Concerning frequency of BP measurement, 38.8% participants measured it once or more per week. The majority of people had a blood pressure monitoring device in the beginning of this study. Most people that measure BP (98.6%) at home do possess a BP measurement device. Most people who measure BP once or more per week were males, have a BP monitoring device and did not report to have high cholesterol. CONCLUSIONS According to the European Society of Hypertension, to hypertensive patients, it is considered frequent to measure BP once or twice a week. In this study, 38.8% of participants measured BP once or more per week. As for the location of BP measurements, most people frequently performed it at home. This can be seen as a way of maintain and improve self-management of hypertension