A questionnaire survey of symptoms in a hypertension clinic

to assess symptoms of patients on antihypertensive therapy.

hospital hypertension clinic.

self administered questionnaire (sent and returned by mail) listing 23 symptoms; four grades of response (none, mild or seldom, moderate or sometimes, severe or frequent); special scale for nocturia and appetite.

302 patients completed the questionnaire (87% of those to whom it was sent); 109 of these patients completed it a second time, after an interval of four months, so that repeatability could be assessed. REPEATABILITY: scores were high, ranging from 0.92 to 0.99, for all symptoms except flushing (all grades 0.91), nausea (all grades 0.90) and sleepiness (severe, 0.82) (method of Bulpitt et al).

overall prevalence of symptoms was high, but most were mild or infrequent. Women had significantly greater prevalence of oedema, flushing and insomnia than men and tended to assess their symptoms more often as severe or frequent. Nocturia was the only symptom more common in those above median age (62 yr) than in those below. Lack of energy was the only symptom more prevalent in the treated than in the untreated. No difference in prevalence of symptoms was detected between those taking or not taking a specific type of drug (beta blocker, diuretic, ACE inhibitor, calcium antagonist).

in patients whose antihypertensive therapy has been carefully adjusted to try to avoid symptomatic side effects, the burden of such side effects appears to be very small.