Management guidelines in essential hypertension: report of the second working party of the British Hypertension Society.

Low rates of detection and treatment of hypertension among current cigarette smokers

“…These data were collected in 1994 when recommendations to implement BP management according to the level of cardiovascular risk were already well established 4 and it might have been expected that higher rates of detection and treatment would have been achieved in smokers.…”

“…2 Clinical guidelines on the diagnosis and management of high BP suggest that efforts to detect and treat high BP should be especially intense in subjects who smoke or have other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. 4 This paper reports an analysis of data from the Health Survey for England 1994 which tested the hypothesis that diagnosis and treatment of high BP would be less frequent in those who smoked. P Ͻ 0.001.…”

Hypertension in the elderly: attitudes of British patients and general practitioners

“…4,[18][19][20][21] Despite the guidelines, GPs disagreed on whether the hypothetical patient should be treated, with almost half not wishing to treat. This negative attitude of some GPs towards treating the elderly hypertensive, previously noted also by others, 22,23 is clearly not due to ignorance of the true absolute benefits of treating hypertension.…”

“…[1][2][3] Guidelines have been produced to facilitate the implementation of this message. 4 Unfortunately many studies show that this condition is currently not well managed in British general practice. 5 Effectively, guidelines are frequently ignored despite strong, consistent and convincing evidence that treating healthy elderly patients with hypertension can prevent disabling consequences of coronary and cerebrovascular disease.…”

Treatment of hypertension in patients with type 2 diabetes: a review of the recent evidence

“…23 Target blood pressure was defined as a diastolic blood pressure Ͻ90 mm Hg, but no firm recommendation was made for systolic blood pressure. These guidelines have generally been extrapolated to diabetic patients.…”