Relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and high blood pressure by community pharmacists in Spain.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to determine the influence that different risk factors (age, gender, obesity, smoking, inactivity, diabetes mellitus and previous diagnosis of arterial hypertension) have on arterial pressure, and to determine the prevalence of patients that have high blood pressure and hypertension but have not received drug-treatment for arterial hypertension.

Setting: 42 Spanish community pharmacies.

Method: Observational and descriptive study. Patients included in the study were over 18 years of age, not receiving pharmacological treatment for arterial hypertension and not pregnant. Two measurements of arterial pressure were taken from each patient on the first day of the study and two other measurements on a later day. The average of these four measurements was taken as the arterial pressure value for the patient. All measurements were taken in the participating community pharmacies, always by the pharmacist and following the same protocols. The measurements were noted in the patients' records along with data about the seven risk factors being studied, allowing them to be related with the patient's arterial pressure value.

Results: The number of patients invited to join the study was 3,760, of whom 2,574 agreed to participate, with 2,094 completing the study. It was found that an increase in the number of risk factors led to a corresponding rise in the percentage of patients with high blood pressure and arterial hypertension. The risk of having arterial hypertension was 4.23 times higher in patients aged 65 years and over. It was also 2.88 times greater in those who had been previously diagnosed with arterial hypertension, 2.79 times higher in overweight or obese patients, 2.69 times more in diabetics and 2.22 times higher in men compared with in women. Prevalence of high blood pressure in patients not receiving pharmacological treatment for arterial hypertension was 33.6%, and prevalence of arterial hypertension was 22.8%.

Conclusions: Of the people studied, 22.8% had arterial hypertension. For the risk factors identified, those most related to the presence of arterial hypertension were, in descending order: being 65 years old or over, previous diagnosis of arterial hypertension, being overweight or obese, being diabetic and being male.