Home Blood Pressure Monitoring and Blood Pressure Control

The objective of this study is to measure the effect of home (self) blood pressure monitoring on control of hypertension in a primary care setting. This research is important for several reasons: i) Lack of control of hypertension is common and is associated with morbidity and mortality. ii) The costs of managing hypertensions are high, not only because of the prevalence of hypertension, but also because maintenance of control must exist over many years for most patients. iii) Home blood pressure monitoring is increasingly being used by patients. iv) Guidelines for home blood pressure monitoring are already being developed and distributed. v) While it would seem helpful to increase self-care by patients, there is currently conflicting or inadequate evidence that home monitoring is useful. The main hypothesis of the study is that, compared to patients who receive usual care, patients who use home monitoring will have lower blood pressure levels. Our secondary hypothesis is that HBPM changes physician and patient behaviours in ways that would result in better control of hypertension. The methodology uses cluster randomization. Physicians will be randomly allocated to either have their patients use the intervention or to continue with usual care. The intervention for the experimental group is the provision of a home blood pressure monitor to patients with a request that they record weekly blood pressure measurements and report them to their family physician at their regular hypertension follow-up visits. The physicians will be informed of current guidelines for target levels for home monitored blood pressure. The control group will receive usual care. The main outcome measures will be blood pressure level (by 24 hour ambulatory monitoring) at baseline, 6 months and 12 months. The secondary objective of this study is to measure the effect of home monitoring on physicians' and patients' behaviours related to hypertension control. Behaviours that will be measured include the intensity and type of pharmacological treatment, compliance with antihypertensive medication and changes in patient's lifestyle.