Management of hypertension. Effect of improving patient compliance for follow-up care
S. W. Fletcher, F. A. Appel and M. A. Bourgeois
A radomized controlled trial was conducted in a metropolitan teaching
hospital to determine whether improving follow-up of emergency room
patients who had hypertension led to improvements in their medical care and
blood pressure control. One hundred fourty four patients were randomly
assigned into an intervention group and a control group. In the former, a
follow-up clerk assigned patients in returning for follow-up care.
Eighty-four percent of patients in this group and 63% of control patients
returned to the clinic (P less than 0.1). However, five months after the
patients' emergency room visits, 51% of patients in the intervention group
and 53% of control patients were normotensive. There were more diagnostic
and therapeutic measures in the intervention group, but long-term
management was similar in both groups. Improvement in follow-up may not be
by itself lead to blood pressure control among hypertensive patients.
