Lifestyle Counselling and Blood Pressure Control among Hypertensive in a Primary Care Clinic; A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Hypertension is a global health issue among the adult population with associated high morbidity and mortality rates. As the prevalence of hypertension increases in adult Nigerians, achieving target blood pressure (BP) control has become an importantmanagement challenge, especially with the adoption of western diet and lifestyle. Therefore, the aim of this study wasto determine the role of lifestyle counseling on BP control among hypertensives attending a general outpatient clinic at Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti. A Quasi-experimental study was performed on 322 adult patients (161 intheintervention group and 161 in the control group) with hypertension who had been on treatment for at least 3 months. Relevant data were collected using interviewer-administered semi-structured questionnaire. The 5As brief intervention for addressing health risk behaviour tool was used as a counseling guide only for the intervention group. The differences in the BP control between the intervention and control groups were statistically significant (p < 0.001) as more than two third of the intervention group 135(83.9%) had good BP control, compared to 68(42.2%) of the control group. Lifestyle counseling led to good BP control. Physicians will do well to counsel hypertensive patients on nutrition and lifestyle behaviour with a view to improving BP control in them

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