INTRODUCTION: The study was conducted to define the determinants of suboptimal BLOOD PRESSURE (BP) CONTROL among hypertensive patients under treatment and explore a predictive model for detecting the patients at risk for increased BP.METHODS: We enrolled 97 patients (40 males, 57 females) under treatment for hypertension between June 2006 and May 2007 in Shafa hospital, Kerman, Iran. BP was measured at clinic twice within 5-minute intervals. After setting up ambulatory BLOOD PRESSURE monitoring (ABPM), BP was measured at 30-minute intervals during the day and 60-minute intervals during the night. The frequency of increased BP (more than 140/90 mmHg) was included in a regression model as dependent variable and all the others such as age, sex, body mass index (BMI), drugs and baseline clinical measurements as the predictors.RESULTS: Increased BP was detected in 44% (95% CI: 38.79%-49.65%) of all measurements during 24-hour monitoring. The frequency of increased BP had a significant relationship with BMI (β=0.35, P=0.001). Clinic's pulse PRESSURE was a significant predicting factor for BP increase (P=0.02).CONCLUSION: BMI and pulse PRESSURE are the best predictors for being hypertensive during lifetime. Ineffective treatment of hypertension is frequent among the hypertensive patients.

Objectives: Hypertension is an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. One of the cornerstones of Primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases is screening high BLOOD PRESSURE and antihypertensive drug therapy. Unfortunately little has been known about CONTROLling of hypertension in rural areas of Iran. This research was performed to assess the CONTROL of high BLOOD PRESSURE in rural areas of Charmahal and Bakhtyari Province. Methods: In a cross- sectional study, 376 patients were selected by a random cluster sampling from 19 rural healthcare centers. Their BLOOD PRESSURE were measured and recorded. Systolic BLOOD PRESSURE (SBP) lower than 140 mmHg and Diastolic BLOOD PRESSURE (DBP) lower than 90 mmHg were defined as successful CONTROL of high BLOOD PRESSURE. The percentage of successful CONTROL of high BLOOD PRESSURE was calculated and its relation with gender, Body Mass Index (BMI), and type of drug therapy was evaluated. Results: BLOOD PRESSURE was successfully CONTROLled in 125 of 376 patients (33%). We found that male patients, and patients who were on multi-drug therapy had better BLOOD PRESSURE CONTROL (P-Value <0.05). There was not any significant relationship between BMI of patients with level of BLOOD PRESSURE CONTROL. Conclusion: It seems that insufficient BLOOD PRESSURE CONTROL still, remains major public health problem. These results underscore the urgent need to develop national strategy to improve treatment of hypertension.