Physician triffers for changing pharmacological treatment in hypertensive pateients

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Patrick, Sean

• Hypertension is the number one reason to visit the family physician in Canada and is responsible for substantial health care expenses. Approximately one third of community-dwelling Canadians with hypertension have blood pressure (BP) levels exceeding recommended thresholds, and this is partly related to a physician's willingness to alter drug treatment in hypertensive patients. The primary objective of this quality improvement study was to compare the factors that differ between patients with controlled and uncontrolled BP in order to identify potential physician triggers for alteration of drug therapy in hypertensive patients or those with high BP. Patient files from the Kaye Edmonton Clinic were analyzed and relevant patient demographics, health history, current medications, and changes to BP were recorded. A chi-square analysis was then used to determine any significant differences between patients with controlled and uncontrolled BP. Only one significant difference was noted: patients with a controlled BP responded more positively to changes in drug therapy compared to patients with uncontrolled BP. Nonetheless, patients with a controlled BP were often younger and had a shorter duration of hypertension. These findings offer potential physician triggers that need to be investigated further. A future study involving a longer period and wider study population is needed in order to obtain more meaningful information regarding when to alter drug therapy.

• Date created

  2014-04-04

• Subjects / Keywords

  • hypertension
  • HTN
  • blood pressure
  • guideline adherance
  • drug therapy
  • quality improvement
  • BIO 489

• Type of Item

  Research Material

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-fpzs-b046

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International