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Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative

BACKGROUND: Hypertension is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease in India, but less than 10% of the estimated people with hypertension have blood pressure under control. The India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI) was implemented to strengthen hypertension management and control i...

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Autores principales: Kunwar, Abhishek, Durgad, Kiran, Kaur, Prabhdeep, Sharma, Meenakshi, Swasticharan, Leimapokpam, Mallela, Madhavi, Saxena, Ashish, Tayade, Sadhana, Gill, Sandeep, Gopal, Bipin K., Pathni, Anupam K., Tullu, Fikru T., Dhaliwal, R. S., Bhargava, Balram
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Ubiquity Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8663742/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34909373
http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/gh.1010
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author Kunwar, Abhishek
Durgad, Kiran
Kaur, Prabhdeep
Sharma, Meenakshi
Swasticharan, Leimapokpam
Mallela, Madhavi
Saxena, Ashish
Tayade, Sadhana
Gill, Sandeep
Gopal, Bipin K.
Pathni, Anupam K.
Tullu, Fikru T.
Dhaliwal, R. S.
Bhargava, Balram
author_facet Kunwar, Abhishek
Durgad, Kiran
Kaur, Prabhdeep
Sharma, Meenakshi
Swasticharan, Leimapokpam
Mallela, Madhavi
Saxena, Ashish
Tayade, Sadhana
Gill, Sandeep
Gopal, Bipin K.
Pathni, Anupam K.
Tullu, Fikru T.
Dhaliwal, R. S.
Bhargava, Balram
author_sort Kunwar, Abhishek
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Hypertension is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease in India, but less than 10% of the estimated people with hypertension have blood pressure under control. The India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI) was implemented to strengthen hypertension management and control in public sector health facilities. Since late March 2020, lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic limited healthcare access and disrupted the provision of essential health services. IHCI quickly implemented adaptive interventions to improve access to medications. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the availability of antihypertensive drugs in peripheral public sector facilities during the lockdown and the proportion of patients who received drugs through community drug distribution, i.e., through Health and Wellness Centers (HWCs)/Sub-Centers (SCs), the most peripheral public sector health facilities for primary care, and home delivery. METHODS: We collected data from 29 IHCI districts of 5 states (Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Telangana) during April–May 2020. The population included individuals diagnosed with hypertension and enrolled under IHCI in all public sector primary care health facilities. We contacted a convenience sample of more than one-third of the functional HWC/SC and analyzed the proportion of facilities and patients who received drugs. We also contacted a convenience sample of patients telephonically to estimate their self-reported availability of drugs. CONCLUSION: Of the 4245 HWC/SC, more than one-third were contacted telephonically, and 85–88% had received antihypertensive medications for community-level distribution. Among 721,675 patients registered until March 2020, 38.4% had received drug refills through HWC/SC or home delivery by frontline workers during the lockdown. We demonstrated the feasibility of community-level drug distribution for patients with hypertension during the COVID-19 lockdown in India. The adaptive strategy of community-based drug distribution through HWC/SC and home delivery appears feasible and may help improve access to hypertension care during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
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spelling pubmed-86637422021-12-13 Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative Kunwar, Abhishek Durgad, Kiran Kaur, Prabhdeep Sharma, Meenakshi Swasticharan, Leimapokpam Mallela, Madhavi Saxena, Ashish Tayade, Sadhana Gill, Sandeep Gopal, Bipin K. Pathni, Anupam K. Tullu, Fikru T. Dhaliwal, R. S. Bhargava, Balram Glob Heart Original Research BACKGROUND: Hypertension is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease in India, but less than 10% of the estimated people with hypertension have blood pressure under control. The India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI) was implemented to strengthen hypertension management and control in public sector health facilities. Since late March 2020, lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic limited healthcare access and disrupted the provision of essential health services. IHCI quickly implemented adaptive interventions to improve access to medications. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the availability of antihypertensive drugs in peripheral public sector facilities during the lockdown and the proportion of patients who received drugs through community drug distribution, i.e., through Health and Wellness Centers (HWCs)/Sub-Centers (SCs), the most peripheral public sector health facilities for primary care, and home delivery. METHODS: We collected data from 29 IHCI districts of 5 states (Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Telangana) during April–May 2020. The population included individuals diagnosed with hypertension and enrolled under IHCI in all public sector primary care health facilities. We contacted a convenience sample of more than one-third of the functional HWC/SC and analyzed the proportion of facilities and patients who received drugs. We also contacted a convenience sample of patients telephonically to estimate their self-reported availability of drugs. CONCLUSION: Of the 4245 HWC/SC, more than one-third were contacted telephonically, and 85–88% had received antihypertensive medications for community-level distribution. Among 721,675 patients registered until March 2020, 38.4% had received drug refills through HWC/SC or home delivery by frontline workers during the lockdown. We demonstrated the feasibility of community-level drug distribution for patients with hypertension during the COVID-19 lockdown in India. The adaptive strategy of community-based drug distribution through HWC/SC and home delivery appears feasible and may help improve access to hypertension care during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Ubiquity Press 2021-12-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8663742/ /pubmed/34909373 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/gh.1010 Text en Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Original Research
Kunwar, Abhishek
Durgad, Kiran
Kaur, Prabhdeep
Sharma, Meenakshi
Swasticharan, Leimapokpam
Mallela, Madhavi
Saxena, Ashish
Tayade, Sadhana
Gill, Sandeep
Gopal, Bipin K.
Pathni, Anupam K.
Tullu, Fikru T.
Dhaliwal, R. S.
Bhargava, Balram
Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative
title Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative
title_full Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative
title_fullStr Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative
title_full_unstemmed Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative
title_short Interventions to Ensure the Continuum of Care for Hypertension During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Five Indian States—India Hypertension Control Initiative
title_sort interventions to ensure the continuum of care for hypertension during the covid-19 pandemic in five indian states—india hypertension control initiative
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8663742/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34909373
http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/gh.1010
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