ABSTRACT
Background: Hypertension management is suboptimal in many settings. We assessed blood pressure (BP) control according to target; the appropriateness of antihypertensive therapy and the extent of implementing lifestyle modification among hypertensive patients.Method: This study was an audit involving a retrospective review of medical records of hypertensive patients who were 18 years of age and older (n = 300); attended to by doctors or primary health care nurses at a large community health centre; south of Johannesburg; South Africa. Demographic; anthropometric; clinical and management data were extracted from the files of hypertensive patients who met the inclusion criteria. Data analysis included the use of descriptive statistics; the chi-square test and Fisher's exact test. The main outcome measures were the proportions of patients with controlled BP; who used appropriate antihypertensive drugs and who had documented lifestyle modifications.Results: Most patients were black (75.7) and female (68.3). The mean age was 60 years. The majority of the patients (55.7) were either overweight or obese. Fifty-seven per cent of the patients (n = 171) had BP control meeting the target. Appropriate choice of antihypertensive drugs was documented in 81.3 of patients (n = 244); while 56.3 had lifestyle modification documented in their records. Significantly more women had their BP controlled to target compared to men (P = 0.0028). Factors significantly associated with good BP control were white race (P = 0.0001) and documentation of adherence to therapy (P = 0.000).Conclusion: BP control was achieved in the majority of patients and the vast majority was on appropriate drug therapy. White race; female sex and adherence to treatment documented in the medical record were significantly associated with BP controlled to target