ABSTRACT: Attitudes of Primary Care Providers and Recommendations of Home Blood Pressure Monitoring
Abstract
To assess primary care providers’ (PCPs) opinions related to recommending home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) for their hypertensive patients, the authors analyzed a Web-based 2010 DocStyles survey, which included PCPs’ demographics, health-related behaviors, recommendations on HBPM, views of patient knowledge, and use of continuing medical education. Of the 1254 PCPs who responded, 539 were family practitioners, 461 were internists, and 254 were nurse practitioners; 32% recommended HBPM to ≥90% of their patients and 26% recommended it to ≤40% of their patients. Nurse practitioners were significantly more likely to recommend HBPM than were internists (odds ratio, 0.55; 95% confidence interval, 0.40-0.78). The top reasons for not recommending HBPM were “patient can’t afford it” and “patient doesn’t need it.” A total of 20% of PCPs indicated that their patients were poor to lower middle class; these PCPs were less likely to recommend HBPM to their patients than were those PCPs with most patients in higher economic classes. Additional efforts are needed to provide education to providers, especially physicians, about the benefits of HBPM in improved and cost-effective blood pressure control in the United States.
via Attitudes of Primary Care Provi… [J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2013] – PubMed – NCBI.
Written by Brian S McGowan, PhD
Brian is a research scientist and educational technologist. He helped transform Pfizer’s Medical Education Group and previously served in educational leadership roles at HealthAnswers, Inc.; Acumentis, LLC.; Cephalon; and Wyeth. He taught graduate medical education programs at Arcadia University for 10 years. Dr. McGowan recently authored the book "#socialQI: Simple Solutions for Improving Your Healthcare" and has been invited to speak internationally on the subject of information flow, technology, and learning in healthcare.
