Self-Monitoring of Blood Pressure among Adults with Hypertension

Hypertension is a serious medical condition associated with complications and premature death. Self- measurement of blood pressure (BP) which is a way of monitoring BP is recommended and encouraged and is effective at lowering BP. This was a hospital based descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH). Consenting adults with hypertension who regularly attend the Medical Out Patient Department (MOPD) clinics were recruited consecutively for the study over a six-week period. A questionnaire was used to obtain socio-demographic data from the participants. Information including the presence of complications of hypertension and comorbidities, antihypertensive medications used and three blood pressure (BP) readings in the last twelve months were gotten from the patients' folders with the average taken to determine BP control. Three hundred and fifty patients were recruited for the study among whom 230 (65.71%) were females giving a male to female ratio of 1:1.9. The mean age ± SD of the study population was 59±12 years. Less than half 156 (44.57%) of the study population practiced self-monitoring of blood pressure (SMBP) at home. Higher level of education (OR: 6.76, 95% CI 3.87-11.81), use of ≥ 3 antihypertensive medications (OR: 3.18, 95% CI 1.84-5.48) and good diastolic BP (OR: 0.54, 95% CI 0.30-0.98) were found to be correlates of SMBP at home. The practice of SMBP at home among our patients is low. This highlights the importance of regular patients' education on the need for SMBP at home.