Making sense of blood pressure values in follow-up appointments for XXXX .

@entity1 @entity101
BACKGROUND: Although there are effective ways of treating @entity101 , only a minority of all @entity101 @entity1 reach target blood pressure levels. This may be a function of how @entity1 and physicians put measured values into context when they decide if the blood pressure is well controlled or too high. METHODOLOGY: Qualitative analysis of audio-taped follow-up appointments for @entity101 between 51 outpatients and their 11 physicians. All @entity1 came for routine follow-up appointments for @entity101 . The setting was primary and a specialist outpatient care in the south of Sweden. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Borderline blood pressure values led to more deliberation. Common ways of contextualising the blood pressure were by comparing it to previous values and by explaining it in terms of stress or lack of rest. The net effect of this was that the representativity and severity of the measured blood pressure value were downplayed by both @entity1 and physicians. In some instances, physicians (but not @entity1 ) worked in the opposite direction. @entity1 were less actively engaged in interpreting the blood pressure values, stated their views about therapy less often, and were careful not to express views that were overly critical of the drug treatment. CONCLUSIONS: @entity1 and physicians make sense of the blood pressure through a contextualisation process which tends to normalise the face values towards the reference values. The resulting (processed) value is the one acted upon. Discursive handling of the blood pressure therefore makes up an important part of the decision-making.
