Table 1.

Characteristics of hypertensive patients according to whether they attended public or private clinics (n = 343)

Categorical Characteristic	Number with characteristic	Proportion (%)	Proportion (%) attending public clinic N = 170	Proportion (%) attending private clinic N = 173	P value by Chi Square
Gender:% male	128	38	27	48	< .01
% female	213	63	73	52
Have diabetes*	54	27	27	27	1.00
Have vascular disease	43	13	18	8	< .01
Have heart failure	17	5	6	4	.43
Have osteoarthritis	64	19	27	11	< .01
On thiazide†	240	70	70	70	.99
On indapamide‡	89	26	24	28	.31
On beta blocker	64	19	23	15	.04
On calcium channel blocker	145	42	42	42	.98
On ACE inhibitor§	138	40	39	42	.57
On alpha blocker	14	4	3	5	.29
On centrally acting BP drug	38	11	13	9	.28
On vasodilator	3	1	1	1	.57
On ARBװ	40	12	6	17	< .01
On statin	79	23	24	22	.64
On aspirin	58	17	16	18	.62
Continuous Characteristic	Number with valid data	Mean (SD)	Mean attending public clinic	Mean attending private clinic	P value by t-test
Age (years)	342	64(12)	66	63	.08
Weight (kg)	274	82(21)	77	87	< .01
Clinic visits/yr	340	4.7(1.8)	5.0	4.5	< .01
Years since clinic diagnosis	333	9.1(6.1)	11.7	6.5	< .01

*Includes only the 199 patients included because they were hypertensive, not the 144 who were in the study because they were diabetic but also had hypertension

†Includes the thiazide like diuretics, indapamide and chlorthalidone

‡Almost exclusively prescribed as a brand name product costing > $0.15 per tablet compared to bendrofluazide at $0.01 per tablet.

§Angiotensin Converting Enzyme

װAngiotensin Receptor Blocker