ArticleBMJ open2022
Treatment and prescribing trends of antihypertensive drugs in 2.7 million UK primary care patients over 31 years: a population-based cohort study.
Article in BMJ open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Sex differences in single and combined cardiovascular medication use.American heart journal plus : cardiology research and practice · 2026Article
- Article
- Trends in Antihypertensive Medication Use and Blood Pressure Control in Adults Aged 66-79: Results of the National Examination Surveys DEGS1 and Study on Health of Older People Gesundheit 65.Journal of clinical hypertension (Greenwich, Conn.) · 2026Article
- Prescription Trends of Initial Antihypertensive Medications Among Presumed Treatment-Naïve Individuals in Korea: A Retrospective Analysis.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Article
- Understanding the Secular Decline in Testosterone: Mechanisms, Consequences, and Clinical Perspectives.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Digital pharmacoepidemiology of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors in Russia.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- General practitioners' perspectives, preferences, and practices in prescribing antihypertensive medication in primary, uncomplicated hypertension.Family practice · 2025Article
- Risk of Acute Infections in New Users of Antihypertensive Drugs: An Observational Cohort Study.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2025Observational
- Inside CKD: Cost-Effectiveness of Multinational Screening for CKD.Kidney international reports · 2025Article
- Article
- High-Throughput Screening for Prescribing Cascades Among Real-World Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitor Initiators.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2025Article
- Have People Treated With Antihypertensives Been Diagnosed With Hypertension? A Cross-Sectional Study in Stockholm, Sweden.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2025Article
- Prognosis of apparent treatment-resistant hypertension and poor adherence: a nationwide cohort study.Hypertension research : official journal of the Japanese Society of Hypertension · 2025Observational
- Comparative effectiveness and prescribing trends of modified release versus immediate release indapamide in patients with hypertension: cohort study.BMJ medicine · 2025Article
- Validity of a Consumer-Based Wearable to Measure Clinical Parameters in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Healthy Controls: Observational Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2024Observational
- Challenging the status quo: deprescribing antihypertensive medication in older adults in primary care.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2024Article
- Seasonal variation of serum potassium and related prescription pattern: an ecological time series.Journal of clinical pathology · 2024Article
- Hypoxic Cardioprotection by New Antihypertensive Compounds in High Salt-Diet Hypertensive Rats: Glucose Transport Participation and Its Possible Pathway.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- A retrospective analysis of e-prescriptions for non-communicable diseases on a telehealth platform in Malaysia.BMC health services research · 2024Observational
- First, a seat; then, an upgrade.Journal of human hypertension · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo describe the prescribing trends of antihypertensive drugs in primary care patients and assess the trajectory of antihypertensive drug prescriptions, from first-line to third-line, in patients with hypertension according to changes to the United Kingdom (UK) hypertension management guidelines.
designPopulation-based cohort study. SETTING AND
participantsWe used the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, an electronic primary care database representative of the UK population. Between 1988 and 2018, we identified all adult patients with at least one prescription for a thiazide diuretic, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, angiotensin receptor blocker, beta-blocker or calcium channel blocker (CCB). PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: We estimated the period prevalence of patients with antihypertensive drug prescriptions for each calendar year over a 31-year period. Treatment trajectory was assessed by identifying patients with hypertension newly initiating an antihypertensive drug, and treatment changes were defined by a switch or add-on of a new class. This cohort was stratified before and after 2007, the year following important changes to UK hypertension management guidelines.
resultsThe cohort included 2 709 241 patients. The prevalence of primary care patients with antihypertensive drug prescriptions increased from 7.8% (1988) to 21.9% (2018) and was observed for all major classes except thiazide diuretics. Patients with hypertension initiated thiazide diuretics (36.8%) and beta-blockers (23.6%) as first-line drugs before 2007, and ACE inhibitors (39.9%) and CCBs (31.8%) after 2007. After 2007, 17.3% were not prescribed guideline-recommended first-line agents. Overall, patients were prescribed a median of 2 classes (IQR 1-2) after first-line treatment.
conclusionNearly one-quarter of primary care patients were prescribed antihypertensive drugs by the end of the study period. Most patients with hypertension initiated guideline-recommended first-line agents. Not all patients, particularly females, were prescribed recommended agents however, potentially leading to suboptimal cardiovascular outcomes. Future research should aim to better understand the implication of this finding.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.