Quality of life in hypertensive patients treated by prazosin (sustained release) or enalapril: a randomized double blind trial over 24 weeks

The importance of the criterion of Quality of Life (QOL) for compliance wit h antihypertensive drugs led us to study the QOL of 91 hypertensives receiv ing 2.5 mg of the new formulation of prazosin (sustained release), compared with 49 subjects treated by a converting enzyme inhibitor (enalapril 10 mg ), in a double-blind randomized trial. QOL, assessed by means of a 22 item self-administered questionnaire, improved significantly with prazosin, duri ng the 24 weeks of the trial. In the intention to treat analysis, the globa l score of QOL increased from 46.3+/-8.4 to 51.6+/-8.9 (p<0.0001); the cova riance analysis showed that the improvement was obtained as early as the 8t h week. A similar favourable evolution was observed for anxiety, retardatio n and anhedonia components, computed from the same questionnaire. No signif icant difference in QOL evolution was found between prazosin and enalapril. Both treatments proved equivalent in respect of efficacy on blood-pressure values, and tolerance, estimated through the number of dropouts or side-ef fects. These results confirm the benefit to QOL of hypertensive patients of the new formulation of prazosin.