Did Your Doctor Even Notice You Have High Blood Pressure?

Many people have high blood pressure and don’t know it. More surprisingly, even if they visit a doctor, there’s a good chance the doctor won’t know about it either, even after giving them a physical exam. That’s particularly true if they’re less than 25 years old.

Research at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison shows that young adults 18-24 years old with high blood pressure were 28 percent less likely to be diagnosed with hypertension during doctor visits than those 60 and older.

“These young patients come to the clinic and their blood pressure is recorded,” says Heather Johnson, M.D., lead researcher of the study. “They have high blood pressure, but there’s no documentation of a diagnosis.”

Researchers examined electronic health records of 13,593 men and women who were at least 18 years old. All had visited their doctor at least twice within the previous three years in an outpatient, non-urgent care setting, and had multiple elevated blood pressures that met guideline criteria for a hypertension diagnosis.

Yet, after four years of visiting their doctors and accounting for other factors:

• 67 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds remained undiagnosed compared to 54 percent of people 60 and older.
• 65 percent of 25- to 31-year-olds were undiagnosed.
• 59 percent of 32- to 39-year-olds were still living with undiagnosed high blood pressure.

Furthermore, young adults were less likely to be diagnosed if they actively smoked and if they had a mild stage of hypertension, said Johnson.

Conversely, a high blood pressure diagnosis was more likely for minorities, young adults with diabetes, patients with severe high blood pressure and those who made more clinic visits to primary care and specialty providers.