[An effective intervention project for arterial hypertension screening in family medicine]

This study was carried out to assess the effectiveness of a preventive protocol in improving hypertension detection in a hospital-based family medicine unit. This protocol was planned and implemented by local practitioners and did not need any additional budgeting. Two distinct groups, each of 850 adults, were randomly selected from patients having consulted before and after the introduction of the protocol. Medical records were audited. Hypertension screening rate improved of 17.7% (p less than 0.00001) after the application of the preventive intervention. Furthermore, a 20.5% increase of the screening rate was estimated after adjustment by the logistic regression method, for characteristics related to patients and to practitioners. In conclusion, these findings support the hypothesis that this preventive protocol contributes to improve in family physicians their hypertension screening performance and they justify further assessment with a control group.