Community Pharmacist Practices in Hypertension Management
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective: To determine the current practices of community pharmacists in the management of hypertension. Methods: This was a cross-sectional, observational study of pharmacist practice using unannounced standardized patients (SPs) with hypertension visiting a random stratified sample of 101 community pharmacies in Edmonton, Alberta. Consent was not obtained from pharmacists. Results: Knowledge of current blood pressure guidelines and target values: Of the 101 community pharmacists who were visited by the SPs, 69% offered a general blood pressure target value (<120/80 mm Hg); only 7% stated the correct target blood pressure value for the SPs' particular scenario (<140/90 mm Hg). Only 14% requested enough patient history to properly determine target blood pressure. Review of medical history: Few pharmacists questioned the SPs about their medical history (7%), medication profile (16%), family history of cardiovascular disease (19%), previous elevated blood pressure readings (20%), or previous diagnosis of hypertension (22%). Accuracy/confirmation of blood pressure reading: 53% of pharmacists inquired about the conditions under which the blood pressure reading had been taken; 39% of pharmacists offered to retake the patient's blood pressure. Patient education: Pharmacists discussed how hypertension is diagnosed (76%), what hypertension is (46%), how to take a blood pressure reading properly (46%), and the impact of lifestyle measures on blood pressure (60%); they also gave supplemental educational materials (29%). Referral: 83% of pharmacists advised the SPs to make an appointment to see a physician. Conclusions: Pharmacists took reasonable steps to determine the accuracy of the blood pressure measurement, explain the diagnosis of hypertension, and refer to a physician. Major deficiencies were observed in assessment of target blood pressure and review of medical history. Pharmacists, alone or in collaboration with other health professionals, are urgently needed to play a major role in identifying, screening, and managing individuals with hypertension. Can Pharm J 2006;139(5):38–44.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".