The 2025 Hypertension Canada Guidelines consists of 2 parts: A Primary Care Guideline and a Comprehensive Guideline for the more specialized topics (1) .
The Primary Care Guideline is designed to be a practical, easily applied tool which represents a balance of best available evidence and pragmatism (2). The committee consisted of volunteers representing primary care (the majority of members), patient partners, a guidelines methodologist and hypertension specialists. We followed Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) and ADAPTE frameworks were employed in accordance with Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) quality and reporting standards to develop the recommendations. We used the HEARTS framework to create pragmatic algorithms for diagnosis and treatment. We utilized the Guidelines International Network principles to manage competing interests.
The Primary Care Guidelines process also includes Patient/Public Guidelines, published here.
The Comprehensive Guidelines are starting with a topic prioritization exercise, whereby we will solicit the hypertension community and stakeholders to suggest topics. These topics will be evaluated using a comprehensive evidence synthesis. The Comprehensive Guidelines will be “living” guidelines, for which we will update continuously. The first of the topics should be ready for late 2025.