Antihypertensive effectiveness of aliskiren for the 'real-world' management of hypertension: multilevel modelling of 180-day blood pressure outcomes (the Belgian DRIVER Study)

Summary Aims: The ‘DRIVER’ study was designed to investigate the ‘real‐world’ effectiveness of aliskiren‐based treatment of hypertension. This article reports the 180‐day blood pressure (BP) outcomes, and the multilevel (physician‐ and patient‐level) determinants thereof. Methods and results: DRIVER was a prospective, observational, open‐label, multi‐centre, pharmaco‐epidemiologic study of hypertensive patients treated with aliskiren in whom prior treatment failed or was not tolerated. 2070 patients (enrolled by 426 physicians) were enrolled; 1695 patients (81.9%) completed the 180‐day aliskiren treatment period. Mean patient age was 64.2 ± 12.1 years; 53.7% were men, 25.3% diabetic and 40.7% had a high or very high cardiovascular (CV) risk. At 180 days, the mean ± SD reductions in systolic and diastolic BP were −22.9 ± 16.7 mmHg and −10.5 ± 10.9 mmHg respectively (both p