COMMENTARY
Should emergency departments really be screening for hypertension?
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Mr Jason Lee
Accident and Emergency, St James’s University Hospital, Leeds LS9 7TF, UK; docjasonlee@hotmail.com
Accepted 17 January 2005
Abbreviations: ED, emergency department; GP, general practitioner
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Fleming et al,1 in this issue of the EMJ, present further evidence that hypertension identified in the emergency department (ED) should not simply be dismissed as secondary to pain, anxiety or "white coat" effect. Their finding that 28% of patients with "minor injuries" were hypertensive should not surprise, as the British Society for Hypertension reports that 42% of 35-64 year olds in the UK have hypertension.2 Clearly, we can screen for hypertension in the ED but should we do so?
Few would disagree that tight control of blood pressure across the UK population would prevent a significant number of deaths from myocardial infarction and stroke. Individually, however, hypertension is controlled in only a third of treated patients.3 In this study, only 40% of patients with identified hypertension returned for follow up and of these it is not known how many subsequently registered with a general practitioner (GP) and
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