Do Conhecimento À Prática Clínica: Quando Os Conceitos De Prevalência E Controlo Tensional Exigem Uma Definição Rigorosa Da População Alvo

Resumo

Concepts play a key role in science, as they are the basic units of understanding and communicating scientific knowledge. They allow an organization of knowledge and provide a framework that helps to understand the relationships between different phenomena and to develop theories and explanatory models. They are also the basis of scientific language and science communication, allowing the results of research to be shared in a rigorous way, building a common universe of knowledge. The generalization of concepts allows their application to various situations and contexts and contributes to making predictions and comparisons for a wider universe of different theoretical and experimental conditions. This comes in relation to an announced target of MISSAO 70/26 that promotes in hypertensive patients a commendable effort to improve literacy and adherence to therapies and to combat medical inertia. However, the word Mission 70/26 induces the interpretation that whereas the aim is to achieve the 70% hypertension control in Portugal by 2026. Anyone who reads "at first" will interpret that a purpose to control 70% of hypertensive patients in Portugal has been announced. It should be stated that the Mission 70/26 has two separate parts. One is an educational strategy aimed at improving factors that compromise hypertension control, such as adherence and reduction of medical inertia. The second is the study seeking to demonstrate the effectiveness of these measures. Our main concern is that the latter must comply with requirements of scientific rigor in the methods and choices of the target population. In fact, it appears that it will deal with only a very small sample of the universe of hypertensive patients in Portugal in the age range of 18-64 years in patients already followed by family doctors. This does not even represent the hypertensive population of Portugal, nor can it in any case suggest that it does so. In a recent national study3, enrolling a population close to that of the confirmatory study that will confirm or not the announced mission 70/26, it had a hypertension prevalence of 32% (vs. 42% nationally) and a hypertension control rate of 59% vs. 42.1%. Thus, we consider that in the defence of the rigor of science, namely when sponsored by a scientific society, the publicity of the value of the 70/26 mission can be misleading and thereby should explain to which population it refers (age limits, with an established diagnosis, under what medical care, already treated, etc.) avoiding the misinterpretation that this is a representative sample of overall hypertensive patients in Portugal.