[Office visits and physical well-being of hypertensive patients. Results of the Munich blood pressure study].

The relationship between the frequency of physician visits, self-reported health of hypertensives and the awarenes, treatment and control of hypertension has been investigated, using data from the Munich Blood Pressure Study I (1980/81), a study with 2216 participants of a random sample of the adult population of Munich (30-69 y.). As hypothesized, the chance of detecting and treating high blood pressure increased with the frequency of physician visits. However, frequent physician visits did not guarantee an effective treatment of hypertension. 33% of the treated hypertensives who visited their physicians more than ten times in the preceding year failed to show normotensive or borderline blood pressure values. Additionally it could be seen that the awareness, treatment and control of hypertension was closely related to the number of self-reported chronic diseases and self-reported physical well-being. A relationship between social variables and treatment status was only observed for men: among hypertensive men, the proportion who were treated increased with the number of years of education but decreased with the number of household members.