A questionnaire survey of general practitioners in Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture for the Japanese Society of Hypertension Guidelines for the Management of Hypertension 2014

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the Japanese Society of Hypertension Guidelines for the Management of Hypertension 2014 (JSH2014) among Japanese general practitioners (GPs), we used a questionnaire survey with 209 GPs from the Kanagawa Physicians Society. Overall, 93.6% of GPs felt that the contents of the JSH2014 were useful. Based on the results showing that 81.8% of GPs instructed the measurement of blood pressure (BP) in the early morning at home to most patients, GP’s acceptance of home BP methods and their penetration among patients with hypertension were considerably high. Regarding the number of home BP measurements, percentages for “one time,” “two times,” “three times,” and “as many times as the patient decides,” were 20.2%, 44.9%, 12.2%, and 22.9%, respectively; as such, no consensus was reached. Overall, 80.6% of GPs instructed most patients on sodium restriction; however, the content and method of restriction varied. Furthermore, 14.7% collected spot urine to assess salt intake. Many GPs respected the JSH2014 and faithfully adopted the guidelines during medical care. However, GPs did not necessarily agree with all guidelines. GPs sometimes selected the appropriate method for the individual patients and careful observations of how the guidelines affect actual clinical practice may lead to better medical care.

KEYWORDS:

• Blood pressure
• general practitioners
• guideline
• hypertension
• questionnaires

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the members of the Hypertension and Chronic Kidney Disease committee of the Kanagawa Physicians Association whose enormous support and insightful comments were invaluable during the course of my survey. I also owe a very important debt to all members of the Kanagawa Physicians Association who completed this questionnaire.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.