[Does self-measurement of blood pressure improve compliance in hypertensive patients?].

To increase compliance in antihypertensive therapy, adherence was measured before and after distribution of non-automatic blood pressure devices. After 2 weeks of taking placebo, 37 essential hypertensive patients, both male and female, were treated over a period of 8 months with an antihypertensive combination drug containing triamterene. At each follow-up, compliance was checked by triamterene urine fluorescence. In the third month of therapy all patients were given a non-automatic blood pressure device. The results showed that self-recording of blood pressure increased the compliance rate of the group from 65% at the beginning of the trial to 81% at the end. Patients who showed poor adherence and consistently insufficient blood pressure values increased their compliance rate from 0% before to 70% after self-measuring of blood pressure. In the light of these findings, self-recording of blood pressure can be recommended in cases where compliance is suspected to be poor and blood pressure is inadequately controlled.