Objective: The aim of the integrative review was to assemble the best available evidence for effective
nurse-led care interventions for high blood pressure control (HBP) and, then seeks to identify effective
evidence based strategies for adaptability in non-communicable disease programs in Uganda.
Material and methods: A literature review of 18 articles was undertaken using the Medical subject terms
‘‘hypertension/nurse”, ‘‘Sub-Saharan Africa”, ‘‘Nurse-led/Nurse run clinics” in Medline via PubMed and
the Cochrane Central register of Controlled trials. We then set the search limits to include articles published
in English, past five years, involving only human subjects and adults. Only articles that employed
an intervention and involved a nurse/pharmacist or physician in primary, secondary and acute care setting
were included for the study. The level and strength of the articles was appraised by using the Johns
Hopkins Nursing Evidence-based practice appraisal tools.
Results: There is strong evidence to support nurse-led care interventions to be effective in the control of
high blood pressure (HBP). There are a number of effective evidence based strategies for HBP control used
by the nurses; patient/provider education, patient/provider reminder system, nurse prescribing, team
based care, home BP monitoring and use of treatment algorithms.
Conclusion: Nurses play a significant role in the control of high blood pressure when they employ effective
evidence based strategies in identification, prevention and management of hypertension. Adapting
effective evidence based strategies in identification, prevention and management of noncommunicable
diseases could improve patient outcomes in Uganda.
2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license