This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Patients with undiagnosed hypertension often have no history of CVD, diabetes

Patients with undiagnosed hypertension typically had no other CVD or diabetes, according to findings recently published in Family Practice.

“A primary care challenge is to identify potential factors that are associated with a higher risk of having undiagnosed hypertension among individuals meeting hypertension criteria,” Kénora Chau, MD, of the département de médecine Générale at the Université de Lorraine in France and colleagues wrote.

“The knowledge of the risk patterns associated with these factors may be useful for primary care and especially for [general practitioners], enabling to precociously suspect and detect undiagnosed hypertensive subjects, as well as establish timely care and health behavior management,” they added.

Researchers gathered data regarding age, alcohol consumption, anti-cholesterol treatments, BMI, CVD, diabetes, gender, height, hypertension history (both self and family), memory disorder, number of doctor visits per year, perceived health status, regular sports/physical activity, tobacco smoking status, weight and waist circumference of 222 patients with a diagnosis of hypertension and 59 patients who were not diagnosed with hypertension aged 50 to 76 years.

Chau and colleagues found that five risk factors were linked with undiagnosed hypertension among hypertensive subjects: no cardiovascular diseases/diabetes (OR = 8.51; P < .001); male gender (OR = 4.61; P < .001), no familial hypertension history (OR = 3.15; P = 0.002), between zero and three general practitioner consultations per year (OR = 3.18; P < .001), and for each 1-cm decrease in waist circumference (OR = 1.05; P = .002). Alcohol consumption, anti-cholesterol treatment, BMI, living alone and perceived health status were among the significant factors in bivariate analysis. (P < .05).

“The undiagnosed-hypertension subjects thus display specific features that may not alert them of the risks of hypertension, are unaware of these risks and neglect their hypertension, and fail to consult [general practitioners] to assess their hypertensive status. Our findings help understand why despite decades of public health education, many adults are unaware of their hypertension,” Chau and colleagues wrote.

“Physicians should therefore be vigilant in that individuals featuring these criteria may have underlying hypertension. Our results call for further qualitative and/or quantitative research for their early detection and appropriate lifestyle management and care,” they concluded. – by Janel Miller

Disclosure: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.