The Edgecombe County (NC) High Blood Pressure Control Program: II. Barriers to the use of medical care among hypertensives.

As the initial step in a five-year project to improve control of high blood pressure in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, a survey was conducted in 1980 to determine the prevalence of hypertension and to identify factors which might constitute barriers to the use of medical care by hypertensives. This report summarizes the findings for the 539 hypertensives identified through the baseline survey. In general, Black hypertensives reported more access problems than Whites. Within race, however, males and females differed very little on selected measures of potential access to medical care. Among women, lower scores on potential access were strongly associated with being untreated, whereas for men, concerns about the safety of anti-hypertensive drug therapy were associated with being unaware. On a summary measure of the actual use of medical care in response to symptoms, both male and female treated hypertensives scored higher than their untreated counterparts. The implications of these and other findings for community-based blood pressure control activities are discussed.