Home Blood Pressure Control and Drug Prescription Patterns among Thai Hypertensives: A 1-Year Analysis of Telehealth Assisted Instrument in Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Nationwide Pilot Project.

"Disclosure The funding organizations did not have any role in the design of the study, data analysis, and the interpretation of the results. Conflicts of Interest All authors declare no conflicts of interest."

"The authors acknowledge the contribution of the investigators, staff, and patients from all 46 sites. They would like to thank the nurse coordinators (Naiyana Kanjanapibul and Sawangchit Kongpibarn) and pharmacist coordinators (Sawanya Ratvijitwet, Thanthip Watasuntonpong, and Jiranuch Wongworakul) for their strong dedication to the project. They also acknowledge Connect Diagnostics Co. Ltd. for the IT project support. The major source of funding was from the charity concert, a fundraising event, which was held by the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, to commemorate Her Majesty the Queen's 84th Birthday Anniversary Celebrations on the 12th of August 2016. The study was also supported in part by The Heart Association of Thailand and The Thai Hypertension Society. This study analyzed the achievement of HBP control and drug prescription patterns in Thai hypertensive adults at one year of follow-up after starting the THAI HBPM nationwide pilot project. The study used HBP of <135/85 mmHg as a treatment target. This goal has been supported by the recommendation from the national guideline [] and has also been addressed in the Thai National Health Policy Program []. The result showed that the rate of successful HBP control was slightly increased from 51.8% at baseline to 57.0% at one-year follow-up after implementing the HBP telemonitoring while the rate of successful CBP control was increased from 42.7% at baseline to 53%. In comparison with prior studies in Thailand, the BP control rate ranged from 30% to 68%. This wide range was due to the different defined target BP, level of the participating hospital, and the method that was used to measure BP (i.e., CBP reading, HBP reading, or field BP measurement) [, –]. The data from HBP measurement is more predictive of long-term cardiovascular outcomes than CBP [, ] since it minimizes the white-coat effect that is commonly observed in CBP measurement []. The overall mean baseline HBP in this cohort was 134.4 ± 15.3/80.1 ± 9.4 mmHg while the mean baseline CBP was higher at 143.9 ± 18.1/84.3 ± 11.9 mmHg, confirming the presence of white-coat effect in real-life practice. Therefore, it is important to highlight that the BP control rate adjudicated based on HBP reading is considerably different from the studies that reported CBP data [, ]. Disclosure: The funding organizations did not have any role in the design of the study, data analysis, and the interpretation of the results."