People with high blood pressure might be best off taking a multi-pronged approach when it comes to tackling hypertension, researchers suggest.
The researchers in America reviewed 100 studies of 56,000 people with hypertension and found that patients who monitored their own blood pressure, visited their GP to review their medication, and received health education and motivation coaching had the most success in reducing their high blood pressure.
"Multi-level, multi-component strategies, followed by patient-level strategies, are most effective for blood pressure control in patients with hypertension and should be used to improve hypertension control," the researchers from Tulane University wrote in a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The Heart Foundation estimates that in 2014/15 about six million Australian adults had high blood pressure, the main risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
Of those, more than two thirds had uncontrolled or unmanaged high blood pressure because they weren't taking any medication.
The American researchers said that while the prevalence of hypertension is high and increasing worldwide, the proportion of controlled hypertension remains low.
"Despite strong evidence that anti-hypertensive medications and lifestyle modifications reduce blood pressure and subsequent morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease, hypertension control rates hover between 25 and 40 per cent, a rate that has remain unchanged for the past 40 years," they wrote.
"As such, strategies are needed to increase control rates."
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