Objective: To establish effectiveness of the hypertension program basing on the detection degree, decreasing of blood pressure and control of hypertension.
Design: Intervention study.
Setting: Primary care.
Patients: A group > or = 14 years of age, treated by the primary health care and selected at random (3,349). Here we found all the patients with hypertension (237). INTERVENTION AND MAIN RESULTS: Hypertension program approval of the public health department. Criteria followed are those suggested in report V of the Joint National COMMITTEE: Global prevalence of hypertension is 7.1% and in the group > or = 65 years of age 51.3%. Average decrease of the systolic blood pressure is 18.9 mmHg and that of the diastolic blood pressure 13.5 mmHg, both with p < 0.001. Decrease for patients with mild hypertension was 5.4-13.8 mmHg for systolic and 6.7-11.8 for diastolic. Patients with moderate hypertension 17.3-22.5 and 12.2-15.7 mmHg respectively and patients with severe hypertension 27.6-43.0 and 15.0-23.0 mmHg. The 39.7% of hypertensive patients have systolic < 140 mmHg and 70.0% have diastolic < 90 mmHg at the end of monitoring period.
Conclusions: Actual application of hypertension program by our primary care system allows detection of elderly patients with high blood pressure, major decrease of blood pressure, together with a greater decrease even whether they high at the beginning of the monitoring.