Adherence of health-care providers to hypertension management guidelines in Khartoum, Sudan, 2020

Introduction: Hypertension has the highest prevalence among the major non-communicable diseases in Sudan (prevalence 27.6%) due to high amount of salt intake in foods, lack of exercise, obesity, stress, smoking, and increase in age. Different guidelines have been proposed from time to time to increase the number of patients with controlled blood pressure. It is a well-established fact that poor disease control is largely related to the poor patient compliance to medical advice and medications. However, the other important aspect of the same problem is the physician's adherence to evidence-based management of hypertension, but, unfortunately, this has not been studied adequately. Objective: The objective is to investigate adherence practices of health care providers to the use of clinical practice guidelines in Khartoum, Sudan. Materials and Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was carried out from February to April 2020 among health-care providers which include prescribing doctors and community pharmacists in Khartoum locality. Data were collected using electronic delivery validated questionnaire. Results: A total of 200 health-care professionals (HCPs) voluntary participated, 51% were pharmacists, while 49% were prescribing doctors. As overall 86.125% of participated health-care provider aware about hypertension as a health problem as a mean of their correct responses. In the area of measurement and management of a new case of hypertension, the mean of the responses (mean of correct answers) which follow guidelines was 55.75%. In the area of selection of anti-hypertensive treatment in comorbid conditions the mean responses of correct responses was 58.88%. Conclusions: Our study observed that the majority of HCP adhere to guidelines for hypertension in Khartoum locality. The study showed a lack of knowledge among HCPs in managing hypertension in patients with the comorbid condition.