Team-based care is most effective way to control hypertension

Research suggests team-based care is most effective way to control hypertension
Patients diagnosed with high blood pressure are given better control of their condition from a physician-pharmacist collaborative intervention than physician management alone, according to new research.

Pharmacists can play a key role in communicating with physicians to address suboptimal therapy, helping physicians to provide counselling on lifestyle change and performing patient follow-up.

The research was carried out to evaluate the individual care processes of the physician-pharmacist collaborative intervention in treating hypertension, a major cause of heart disease, strokes and aneurysms of the arteries.

In a study combining two randomised controlled clinical trials, the team of researchers led by Brunel University London found that, resulting from the physician-pharmacist team, each antihypertensive medication alone led to systolic blood pressure (SBP) reduction of 7.19mm Hg, and each session of counselling about lifestyle change alone resulted in a SBP reduction of 5.30mm Hg.

The six-month data was taken from two US studies in 2008 and 2009, in which a total of 496 patients were treated.

Puttarin Kulchaitanaroaj, Research Fellow at Brunel University London