MAY MEASURE MONTH 2022 IN ITALY: RESULTS OF A NATIONWIDE SURVEY

Objective: By affecting approximately 45% of the world's population, hypertension is the main risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Of note, only half of hypertensive patients manage to have good blood pressure (BP) control. Relevant reasons for the persistence of uncontrolled BP during treatment are lack of compliance on the patients’ side, and therapeutic inertia on physicians’ side. Design and method: During the global BP screening campaign “May Measure Month” (MMM) (May 1st to July 31st, 2022), a nationwide, cross-sectional, opportunistic study endorsed by the Italian Society of Hypertension was conducted on volunteer adults >= 18 years to raise awareness of the health issues surrounding high BP. A questionnaire on demographic/clinical features and questions on the use of fixed-dose single-pills for the treatment of hypertension was administered. BP was measured with standard procedures. Results: A total of 1612 participants (mean age 60.0±15.41 years; 44.7% women) were enrolled. Their mean BP was 128.5±18.1/77.1±10.4 mmHg. About one in two participants was sedentary, or overweight/obese, or hypertensive. 55.5% individuals with complete BP assessment had uncontrolled hypertension; not being on a fixed-dose combination of antihypertensive drugs and not measuring their BP at home were common features in this setting. Self-reported adherence to BP medications was similar between individuals with controlled and uncontrolled BP (95% vs 95.5%). Conclusions: This survey identified a certain degree of therapeutic inertia and poor patients’ involvement in the therapeutic process and its monitoring in the examined population, underlining the importance of prevention campaigns to increase risk factors awareness to reduce CV risk.