Management of Hypertension by Primary Health Care Providers in Khartoum, Sudan.
Hypertension has the highest prevalence among the major non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Sudan represented a quarter of NCDs. Hypertension in Sudan is one of the 10 leading diseases treated in outpatients of health facilities and also is one of the 10 leading causes of deaths in Sudan.
Despite the importance of quality, to date there have been few sustained quality assurance (QA) efforts in developing countries. Many evaluations have focused on measuring changes in mortality and morbidity, or on measuring coverage rates. Few have emphasized the quality of services or the process of service delivery. Primary health care (PHC) level is the first contact of the community with the health system, and high percentage of population use PHC, as it is more accessible and
affordable and hence it has a drive to reach vulnerable populations.
Almost all (97.6%) physicians agreed on the lifestyle modification as important measure for preventing or delaying the onset of hypertension and its complications. The majority (90%) of physicians have good skills on standard management of hypertension (non-drug treatment or life style modification, and drug treatment)
Moreover, the aspects for assessment of the quality of the services include suitability for providing the programmed services in reliable manner. Therefore, quality can be measured by the components and dimensions of the health care system.
In addition, most of the physicians have fair knowledge on suspicion of secondary hypertension and the classification of hypertension, serious complications of hypertension, so this can
help much in early detection and proper diagnosis and management of hypertension and its complications.
Public Health Open J. 2016; 1(3): 66-70. doi: 10.17140/PHOJ-1-113