1. ¹Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale-New Haven Health, New Haven, CT, USA
2. ²Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, USA
3. ³Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, USA
4. ⁴Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, USA
5. ⁵Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, New Haven, CT, USA

Correspondence: Dr HM Krumholz, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St, PO Box 208088, New Haven, CT 06520-8088, USA. E-mail: harlan.krumholz@yale.edu

⁶Currently affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Received 11 March 2005; Revised 19 April 2005; Accepted 19 April 2005; Published online 28 July 2005.

Abstract

Little is known about patient awareness of nationally recommended blood pressure targets, especially among patients with cardiac disease. To examine this issue, we interviewed 738 patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease to assess their knowledge of their systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels as well as corresponding national targets. We used bivariate and multivariate analyses to determine if any patient demographic or clinical characteristics were associated with blood pressure knowledge. Only 66.1% of patients could recall their own systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels. Only 48.9% of all patients could correctly name targets for these values. Knowledge of target blood pressure levels was particularly poor among patients who were female (odds ratio (OR) 0.69; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.49–0.98), aged 60 years (OR 0.70, CI 0.51–0.97), without any college education (OR 0.48, CI 0.35–0.65), without a documented history of hypertension (OR 0.57, CI 0.39–0.84), and with known diabetes (OR 0.46, CI 0.33–0.66). Patients in the highest risk group, according to Joint National Committee guidelines stratification, were no more knowledgeable about their blood pressure levels and targets than lower risk patients. A significant proportion of patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease do not know their own blood pressure levels or targets. Current blood pressure education efforts appear inadequate, particularly for certain patient subgroups in which hypertension is an important modifiable risk factor.