New Opportunities for Monitoring Blood Pressure Control and Awareness in the Population: Insights from 12-Year Editions of the World Hypertension Day

Prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension based on ACC/AHA versus JNC7 guidelines in the PERSIAN cohort study

In this cross-sectional population-based study, we used the baseline data of the Prospective Epidemiologic Research Studies in IrAN cohort study collected in Iran from 2014 to 2020. The main outcomes were the prevalence of hypertension and proportion of awareness, treatment, and control based on the 2017 ACC/AHA guideline compared to the seventh report of the Joint National Committee (JNC7). Of the total of 163,770 participants, aged 35-70 years, 55.2% were female. The sex-age standardized prevalence of hypertension was 22.3% (95% CI 20.6, 24.1) based on the JNC7 guideline and 36.5% (31.1, 41.8) based on the ACC/AHA guideline. A total of 24,312 participants [14.1% (10.1, 18.1)] were newly diagnosed based on the ACC/AHA guideline. Compared to adults diagnosed with hypertension based on the JNC7 guideline, the newly diagnosed participants were mainly young literate males who had low levels of risk factors and were free from conventional comorbidities of hypertension. About 30.7% (25.9, 35.4) of them (4.3% of the entire population) were eligible for pharmacologic intervention based on the ACC/AHA guideline. Implementation of the new guideline may impose additional burden on health systems. However, early detection and management of elevated blood pressure may reduce the ultimate burden of hypertension in Iran.

Knowledge on arterial hypertension in general population: Results from a community pharmacy screening program

BACKGROUNDS AND AIMS

Hypertension is a risk factor for renal, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It is responsible for a large proportion of overall morbidity and mortality every year. Hypertension-mediated organ damage is largely not reversible. For these reasons, prevention has primary importance: sensibilization of population on hypertension-related consequences is essential for therapeutic adherence and reduction of unhealthy lifestyle behaviour. This study aimed to evaluate awareness about hypertension among community pharmacies customers.

METHODS AND RESULTS

A questionnaire about hypertension was collected by 2731 customers from 94 community pharmacies in North West Italy, during a hypertension screening program. Hypertension awareness was unsatisfactory in a large proportion of the sample, with only 15% of subjects having an overall good level of knowledge. Furthermore, lower awareness was associated to higher blood pressure values (132/79 ± 19/11 mmHg vs 128/78 ± 18/10 mmHg, p < 0.001) and subjects resulted hypertensive or uncontrolled despite antihypertensive therapy, presented worse questionnaire scores (4.7 ± 1.9 vs 4.9 ± 2.0, p = 0.03).

CONCLUSION

Knowledge about hypertension is largely unsatisfactory among population. Community pharmacies may play as a setting for health education and hypertension screening.

Blood Pressure Target Achievement Under Monotheraphy: A Real-Life Appraisal

INTRODUCTION

Despite hypertension guidelines suggest that the most effective treatment strategy to improve blood pressure (BP) target achievement is to implement the use of combination treatment, monotherapy is still widely used in the clinical practice of hypertension.

AIM

To investigate BP control under monotherapy in the setting of real-life.

METHODS

We extracted data from a medical database of adult outpatients who were referred to the Hypertension Unit, Sant'Andrea Hospital, Rome (IT), including anthropometric data, CV risk factors and comorbidities, presence or absence of antihypertensive therapy and concomitant medications. Among treated hypertensive patients, we identified only those under single antihypertensive agent (monotherapy). Office BP treatment targets were defined according to 2018 ESC/ESH guidelines as: (a) < 130/80 mmHg in individuals aged 18-65 years; (b) < 140/80 mmHg in those aged > 65 years.

RESULTS

From an overall sample of 7797 records we selected 1578 (20.2%) hypertensive outpatients (47.3% female, age 59.5 ± 13.6 years, BMI 26.6 ± 4.4 kg/m²) treated with monotherapies, among whom 30.5% received ACE inhibitors, 37.7% ARBs, 15.8% beta-blockers, 10.6% CCBs, 3.0% diuretics, and 2.0% alpha-blockers. 36.6% of these patients reached the conventional clinic BP goal of < 140/90 mmHg, whilst the 2018 European guidelines BP treatment targets were fulfilled only in 14.0%. In particular, 10.2% patients aged 18-65 years and 20.4% of those aged > 65 years achieved the recommended BP goals. All these proportions results significantly lower than those achieved with dual (18.2%) or triple (22.2%) combination therapy, though higher than those obtained with life-style changes (10.8%). Proportions of patients on monotherapies with normal home and 24-h BP levels were 22.0% and 30.2%, respectively, though only 5.2% and 7.3% of these patients achieved sustained BP control, respectively. Ageing and dyslipidaemia showed significant and independent positive predictive value for the achievement of the recommended BP treatment targets, whereas European SCORE resulted a negative and independent predictor in outpatients treated with monotherapies.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data showed a persistent use of monotherapy in the clinical practice, though with unsatisfactory BP control, especially in light of the BP treatment targets suggested by the last hypertension guidelines.

Assessment of a non-physician screening program for hypertension and cardiovascular risk in community pharmacies

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

The strategic role of prevention in hypertension setting is well known but, with the only exception of annually events promoted by international scientific societies, no other screening campaigns are available. Aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of a non-physician pharmacy-based screening program and to describe the cardiovascular risk and the BP status of participating subjects.

METHODS AND RESULTS

2731 costumers participated to the screening program, answering to a questionnaire about personal cardiovascular risk and measuring their BP with an Omron HEM 1040-E. Since no threshold for hypertension diagnosis is currently available for community pharmacies BP measurements, we assessed high BP prevalence according to 3 different cut-offs (≥140/90, ≥135/85 and ≥ 130/80 mmHg) and compared normotensives and hypertensives on major cardiovascular risk factors. According to the proposed cut-offs, prevalence of hypertension was respectively of 31%, 45% and 59.5%, and it increased among younger subjects (31-65 y) when the lowest cut-offs were applied. High BP was found in a large percentage of subjects self-declared on-/not on-treatment (uncontrolled hypertensives) or normotensives (presumptive hypertensives) and among those not aware of their own BP values (presumptive hypertensives). Prevalence of CV risk factors was higher in hypertensives than in normotensives.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings demonstrated that a community pharmacy-based screening is feasible and attracts the interests of many subjects, improving awareness on their BP status. The screening was also showed to be useful in order to detect potentially uncontrolled and/or suspected new hypertensives, especially among young adults, to refer to general practitioners for confirmatory diagnosis or further evaluation.

Hypertension Control Rate Should be Defined Consistently and Used to Motivate Action to Improve

Hypertension has been poorly controlled with the old target of less than 140/90 (mmHg). Currently, the average control rate in the United States is about 50% with the old goal of 140/90. If the new goal of 130/80 is used, the control rate would dramatically decrease. For hypertension management, the traditional stepped-care method needs to be replaced with new approaches using single-pill combination pharmacotherapy (polypill) or using hemodynamic data for drug selection and titration to target underlying cardiovascular abnormalities when cardiovascular disease is present. With the old goal of 140/90, these new approaches have achieved a control rate of 90%. The evidence indicates that new models of therapy and patient support can dramatically improve control rate. However, a key requirement is the will to act. Standardizing and publishing the control rate per medical group could motivate clinicians to implement best practices and expedite a rapid shift to better hypertension management.