A controlled study of group therapy in essential hypertension

Seventy-eight patients with essential hypertension participated in a controlled study of group therapy (GT). They were alternately assigned alphabetically to receive GT (48 patients) and to a control group (30 patients). The therapy was aimed at changing some of the patients' coping mechanisms. In both groups, patients continued to take the same dose of antihypertensive medications that they had been taking previously. At the end of 6 months, eight patients had dropped out of the GT group. In the GT group there was a fall in systolic blood pressure of 20.9 +/- 13.1 and in diastolic pressure of 12.8 +/- 6.3 mm Hg (mean +/- SD, P less than 0.01), while in the control group there was no significant change in blood pressure. In neither group was there a significant change in weight. Follow-up 3 months and 1 year after group therapy showed that the effect of the therapy persisted in most patients.