Table I.

General Characteristics of the V‐STITCH Sample

Participants, No.	554
Mean age, (SD), y	63.1 (11.2)
Male, %	98
Race, %
White	57
Nonwhite	43
Married, %	68
Mean REALM score*	58
Some college, %	51
Diabetes, %	36
12‐mo average blood pressure before study, (SD), mm Hg†
Mean systolic	140.6 (14.7)
Mean diastolic	76.9 (9.9)
Have home blood pressure monitor, %	60
Frequency of home monitoring, %
Daily	14
Weekly	26
Monthly	10
Do not have monitor/don't know/no response	50
Adherent to antihypertensive medications, %‡	65
Baseline blood pressure, (SD), mm Hg §
Mean systolic	138.0 (17.6)
Mean diastolic	75.6 (11.3)
Blood pressure “not in control,”%|	55
PDM score
Mean (SD)	85.4 (20.7)
Median	96.3
V‐STITCH indicates the Veterans' Study to Improve the Control of Hypertension; REALM, Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine; and PDM, participatory decision making. *Scored out of 66 total possible points. Nineteen participants (3%) did not complete the REALM measure. †These data were not available for 3 participants (1%). ‡Assessed by validated 4‐question self‐report instrument. 19 Participants were considered nonadherent if they responded “agree” or “strongly agree” to any of the 4 statements. §Twenty participants (4%) did not have blood pressure measured at initial study visit. |As defined by the Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure guidelines as <140/90 mm Hg for nondiabetic, <130/85 mm Hg for diabetic patients.