Clinician Counseling and Cultural Competency to Improve Hypertension Control and Therapy Adherence

BACKGROUND: Hypertension affects nearly 50 million people in the U.S. and is related to increased medical morbidity and mortality associated with a range of medical disorders. Despite the availability of effective treatments for BP control, less than 25 percent of patients with hypertension demonstrate such control, and researchers have found this to be related to important patient factors associated with pharmacotherapy adherence. Further, research has demonstrated that this adherence problem is greater among African Americans than among Caucasians. The focus of the study is on improvements in adherence among patients with hypertension. The study is most specifically targeted to reducing racial disparities in medication adherence by including an interventional element that specifically targets African American patients in its approach. DESIGN NARRATIVE: To improve patients' adherence with prescribed anti-hypertensive medication, BP control, and doctor-patient communication, and to decrease racial disparities in each area, the investigators will conduct a three-armed randomized controlled study in the general internal medicine clinics of a large urban teaching hospital serving many poor African American and white patients. Proven intervention strategies will be implemented by teaching clinicians to use patient-centered counseling, enhancing skills that are known to help patients change health-related behaviors, and enhancing cultural competency among clinicians, thereby further improving clinician-patient communication. One group of clinicians will implement only the patient-centered counseling program. A second group will implement the patient-centered counseling education program, augmenting it with an established method for cultural competency training. A third group (control group) will provide usual care. To assess outcomes, the study will evaluate pre-intervention patient adherence to prescribed medications through patient self-report and the use of electronic pill top monitoring, clinicians' provision of advice and counseling about anti-hypertensive medications and use of cultural competency skills, and the proportion of patients with controlled BP. Subsequent to the interventions, each of these outcomes will be assessed. The aims of this study are to: 1) improve patients' adherence to prescribed anti-hypertensive therapy; 1a. examine adherence rates at baseline, and examine whether there are racial differences in adherence; 1b. decrease racial disparities in patient adherence with anti-hypertensive therapy from the baseline to the follow-up assessments; and 1c. evaluate the relative efficacy of the patient-centered counseling intervention compared to patient-centered counseling augmented by cultural competency training on patients' medication adherence; 2) increase the proportion of patients with controlled hypertension; 2a. examine the baseline proportion of patients with controlled hypertension, and whether there are racial differences in rates of control; 2b. decrease racial disparities in the proportion of patients with controlled hypertension from the baseline to the follow-up assessments; and 2c. evaluate the relative efficacy of patient-centered counseling compared to patient-centered counseling augmented by cultural competency training on patients' BP control; and 3) improve clinicians' communication with patients regarding medication use, as measured by increased frequency of clinicians' provision of advice and counseling about anti-hypertensive medications and use of culturally competent communication styles; 3a. examine whether there are racial disparities in clinicians' provision of advice and counseling or culturally competent communication patterns about anti-hypertensive medications at baseline; 3b. examine whether the proposed interventions decrease any observed racial disparities in clinician communication over time; and 3c. evaluate the relative efficacy of the patient-centered counseling intervention compared to patient-centered counseling augmented by cultural competency training on clinicians' communication patterns.