Impediments to the Control of Hypertension

Abstract

Despite the great therapeutic advances, the control of hypertension in populations is far below the achievable level, even in populations with highly developed health care. By the end of the 1980's, in selected European centres, 18–34% of cases of hypertension were undetected, and among those previously known, 22–38% were untreated. The cooperative WHO/WHL Hypertension Management Audit Project aimed at assessing some of the impediments to better control of hypertension. The concepts and attitudes of 2,215 physicians were surveyed. In various centres and at various patient ages, 25–45% of physicians would not start drug treatment below 100 mm Hg. When inquiring into the perceived reasons why hypertension had not been detected earlier, among other reasons, physicians tended to incriminate their workload, while patients often felt that there was a lack of interest on the doctor's part to take a blood pressure reading. In general, patient satisfaction seemed suboptimal. Physicians' sources of information were varied; neither WHO, nor ISH or WHL seemed to play an important role in informing the physicians.

Key Words:

• Blood pressure
• Hypetension
• Therapy