Impact of Eighth Joint National Committee guidelines on achievement of target blood pressure among hypertensive patients attending tertiary care hospital in South Kerala

ABSTRACT

Background: Hypertension is a major non-communicable disease and a large proportion of patients are not treated adequately even though several antihypertensive drugs and various guidelines are available. Aims and Objectives: The aim of the study was to study the treatment pattern and effectiveness of the antihypertensive drugs by estimating the blood pressure (BP) control achieved based on Joint National Committee (JNC) 8 guidelines for the treatment of hypertension. Materials and Methods: In this observational study, 92 patients with primary hypertension diagnosed since 1 1/2 years were included in the study. BP at the time of diagnosis and on subsequent follow-up visits and details of antihypertensive drugs prescribed during each visit were recorded, until target BP was achieved or till the end of the study period. Wilcoxon Signed Rank test and Mann–Whitney U test were used for analyzing the dependent and independent groups, respectively. Results: Mean age of patients was 57.50 years and 54.3% of them were females. Majority received single drug (80.43%) compared to combination therapy (19.57%). Most frequently prescribed antihypertensive drug group was angiotensin receptor blockers (47.75%) followed by calcium channel blockers (41.44%) and most commonly prescribed individual drugs were losartan and amlodipine (both 25.22%). Seventy-three (79.30%) patients attained their target BP and the average time taken for the adequate control of BP was 5.67 (S.D ± 2.674) weeks. Conclusion: JNC 8 guidelines were found to be effective in this study population.