Statistical analyses

All analyses will be conducted following the intention-to-treat principle. The statistician will be blinded to group allocation. Baseline characteristics of the TBC and UC groups will be assessed via descriptive analyses in terms of age, gender, co-morbidities, smoking status, body mass index, BP and prescribed medications. Baseline characteristics of nurses, pharmacists and physicians will be also described, such as age, 6, year of graduation, and pharmacist status (pharmacy owner, salaried employee). Means (standard deviations) and proportions will be computed for continuous and categorical variables, respectively.

Mean systolic and diastolic BP at month-6 will be compared between the study groups using a Student’s two-sided t-test. At 6-month, the proportion of patients with BP control (daytime ABPM <135/85 mmHg) will be compared between the two groups using a chi-squared test. To account for potential imbalances between groups, multivariate linear or logistic regression will be used to compare mean BP or odds of controlled BP at 6 months between the TBC and UC groups, respectively. Two-sided P value less than 0.05 will be considered as statistically significant. Analyses will be made with Stata 13.0 software (StataCorp LP).