The control rate of hypertension across months of year and hours of day in a large real-world database

Abstract

We investigated the control rate of hypertension across months of year and hours of day in a real-world database. The study participants were hypertensive patients from 142 community health centers across 16 districts in Shanghai, China, who measured their blood pressure with an automatic office blood pressure measurement platform between 2018 and 2023. The 343,400 hypertensive patients included 53.7% of women, and had average age of 70.2 (±8.1) years (range 50–90 years). For months of year, the control rate of hypertension was lowest in February and highest in August (51.9% vs 71.8%). For hours of day, the control rate of hypertension was lowest at 7:00 AM and highest at 12:00 PM (52.1% vs 76.0%). When the months of year and hour of day were considered together, the control rate was lowest at 7 AM in February (42.1%), and highest at 12 PM in July (86.8%). In 8516 patients who had uncontrolled blood pressure in the early morning and had their blood pressure also measured around noon, 45.7% had masked uncontrolled morning hypertension, with higher rates in spring and summer, and in women, those aged 50-69 years, and non-diabetic patients. The control rate of hypertension varies greatly across months of year and hours of day, suggesting that the evaluation of blood pressure control has to take into full consideration the measurement time in terms of months and hours.