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Short- and long-term discontinuation patterns of commonly prescribed antihypertensive drugs among a Chinese population: cohort study

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 22, pages 435–437 (2008)Cite this article

This retrospective cohort study compared cumulative incidences of antihypertensive drug discontinuation at 8 and 48 weeks in two public primary care clinics in Hong Kong, including 2531 patients who newly received a first-ever antihypertensive monotherapy during the period 1990–2002. From clinical patient records, thiazide diuretics had significantly lower discontinuation rates (0.00%) as compared to all other drug classes at 8 weeks in both young males (range: 5.4–10.8% in other classes, P =0.016) and young females (range: 3.9–9.6% in other classes, P <0.001), while at 48 weeks calcium channel blockers (CCBs) showed the highest discontinuation rate (23.0%, 95% CI 17.0%, 29.0%) significantly different from β-blockers (14.4%, 95% CI 10.9%, 17.9%, P =0.011) and thiazide diuretics (13.1%, 95% CI 8.6%, 17.6%, P =0.010) in young females (overall P =0.041). This finding highlights cautions of higher rates of discontinuing CCBs in the long term, and the lower short-term discontinuation rates of thiazides than other drug classes, which strengthens the recommendations from international authorities such as the British Hypertension Society as a best first-line drug for Chinese patients.

Both mortality and morbidity associated with hypertension can be decreased given the consistent drug treatment,1, 2 but medication persistence must be matched by tolerability of prescriptions.

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  1. Department of Community and Family Medicine, School of Public Health, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China

    M C S Wong

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Wong, M. Short- and long-term discontinuation patterns of commonly prescribed antihypertensive drugs among a Chinese population: cohort study. J Hum Hypertens 22, 435–437 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/jhh.2008.13

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