Cross sectional study on arterial hypertension in a general practice setting

An observational study on arterial hypertension (AH) in the setting of general practice takes advantages of reaching easily the involved population and of getting information from data recorded in the physicians' databases. Their results could be different from data obtained in specialist settings. The aim of the study is to obtain some prevalence indexes regarding AH and verify if they are consistent with literature. Researchers administered a questionnaire and measured the blood pressure to 478 individuals, randomly selected from the patients' lists of 17 general practitioners (GPs). Patients with high value of AH but not acknowledged as hypertensive patients (HP) were invited to come back for two new measurements. Some obtained indexes are not consistent with literature, particularly: i) 97.34% of the acknowledged hypertensive patients receive a drug treatment; ii) the percentage of HPs not identified by GP is very low (5.05%); iii) the prevalence of acknowledged HPs at target is higher compared to literature (64.89%). The study shows that the knowledge of clinical history of patients recorded by GPs enhances the rigor of the scientific methodology.