Blood pressure control amongst patients living with hypertension presenting to an urban district hospital outpatient clinic in Kwazulu-Natal

Abstract

BackgroundThe prevalence of hypertension in South Africa has been estimated to be 20% of the adult population with over six million people being affected. Poor adherence to treatment plans lead to inadequate blood pressure control and high morbidity. Many studies have looked at factors contributing to poor blood pressure control in South Africa but few studies actually focus on district hospitals in Kwazulu-Natal in particular, despite the fact that the province has the most heterogeneous population in South Africa.MethodThe study was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at the chronic outpatient clinic of an urban district hospital involving 370 participants aged 18–90 years.ResultThe study showed poorly controlled blood pressure in 58% of the participants. Only 35% knew their blood pressure results on the day of interview and 19.2% were aware of their target blood pressure. Good adherence was self-reported by 95% of the participants, whist 51.4% reported significant side-effects to medication.ConclusionThe majority of patients had poor knowledge about blood pressure and little awareness of their blood pressure reading. These may be precursors to poor blood pressure control and this needs further investigation. A high level of self-reported adherence to medication did not translate into effective blood pressure control. A significant number reported medication side-effects which may have contributed to the poor blood pressure control. The high adherence rate may therefore have been over reported. An objective way to measure adherence will be necessary for future research.

Factors associated with blood pressure control amongst adults with hypertension in Yaounde, Cameroon: a cross-sectional study

“…The higher rates of blood pressure control in our study population may be the result of patients having regular follow-up visits at dedicated hypertension clinics. Our blood pressure control rates was however slightly lower than that reported in previous studies in Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa with blood pressure control rates of 46.6%, 47.7% and 41.9% respectively (11)(12)(13).…”

“…More than half of the patients (60%) in our study were adherent to anti-hypertensive medication. This good adherence rate was lower than that reported in South Africa (13). Thus adherence in this population should be encouraged through education that anti-hypertensive medications should be taken daily and consistently even when feeling well.…”

Patient-related beliefs and adherence toward their medications among the adult hypertensive outpatients in Tanzania

“…Co-payments can also have a negative influence on adherence to medicines for CV diseases including hypertension [11,27,29]. These factors have resulted in concerns with the current state of managing patients with hypertension across countries, with substantial room for improvement in its management [9,25,30,31].…”

Assessment of Blood Pressure Control among Hypertensive Patients in Southwest Ethiopia

“…The rate of blood pressure control is better than the findings reported by Goverwa et al (32.8%) from Zimbabwe, Lulebo et al (15.6%) from Congo, and Adebolu et al (42%) from South Africa [12,34,39]. This might be due to high prevalence of physical inactivity, bad dietary habits, obesity, the presence of comorbidities, and elderly population.…”