Well‐being (quality of life) in connection with hypertensive treatment

Quality of life is often considered to equate how the medical treatment is subjectively perceived by the patient, but ought to include the total impact of the disease/treatment on the patient's emotional, physical, and social well‐being. Recently, a proposal for a generally applicable definition of quality of life in health care was put forward. This definition includes general well‐being, health, and welfare (external factors), as three fundamental components, and the definition is based on both objective and subjective judgments. General well‐being is exclusively an expression of the individual's subjective experience and is based on his or her own qualitative evaluation of well‐being in relation to condition, treatments, and experiences. Health is according to the proposed definition, judged both objectively (signs) and subjectively (symptoms). Apart from health and well‐being, there is also reason to include objectively registrable factors at the welfare level (external factors) such as the consumption of medicines, number of days in hospital, length of sick leave, need of in‐home care, etc. This review is an attempt to elucidate the effects of antihypertensive pharmacotherapy on the patient's general well‐being. The topic will be discussed from several points of views (e.g., aims of antihypertensive treatment, occurrence of symptoms in the population, compliance with prescribed treatment, symptom inventories, the concept of quality of life).