Improving blood pressure control: results of home-based post-acute care interventions

Blood pressure (BP) control remains elusive for many Americans. Although home health nurses are uniquely positioned to help vulnerable individuals achieve BP control, hypertension (HTN) management has not been a high priority in post-acute care.

To examine the effects of two home-based interventions designed to improve BP outcomes among high-risk African-American patients.

Cluster randomized controlled trial.

A total of 845 newly admitted patients with uncontrolled HTN (JNC7 stages 1 or 2).

The "basic" intervention delivered key HTN information to clinicians and patients, and a home BP monitor to patients, while the patients received usual post-acute care. The "augmented" intervention provided more intensive and extensive HTN information, monitoring and feedback for 3 months beyond the index home care admission.

Primary: BP control. Secondary: reductions in mmHG SBP and DBP, improvements in proportions improving JNC7 stage or achieving clinically meaningful reductions in SBP and DBP.

Multivariate regression models.

The basic intervention produced no significant BP improvements; the augmented intervention significantly improved stage 2 patients' outcomes. Among stage 2 patients, the augmented intervention increased BP control by 8.7 percentage points relative to usual care (8.9% vs. 17.6%; p=0.01), yielded an 8.3 mmHG relative reduction in SBP (p=0.01), and increased the proportion achieving at least a 20 mmHG reduction in SBP by 16.4 percentage points (p=0.01).

Among stage 2 patients, a nurse-led intervention providing additional HTN medication review and patient self-management support during the 3-month post-acute care period yielded significant improvements in 3-month BP control, plus improvements in secondary BP outcomes.