Impact of an active educational strategy in arterial hypertension

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of an active-participative educational intervention on the average arterial pressure, index of corporal mass and level of knowledge in hypertensive patients. METHODS: A quasi-experimental open study was carried out. An active-participative educational intervention 4 h daily during a period of 5 days twice monthly for 3 months focused on themes related to arterial hypertension in patients with high blood pressure. No control subjects were included. Subject to acceptance and after informed consent, 48 patients (25-60 years of age) were included with slight and moderate arterial hypertension. Patients with evidence of severe organ damage or with chronic underlying disease were excluded. The impact of the educational intervention was evaluated based on the increase of knowledge, improvement of weight (IMC), and average arterial pressure, taking into consideration 2, 4, and 6 months of the educational strategy. Descriptive statistics were utilized for analyzing results using Student's ttest. RESULTS: The level of knowledge increased 31.30 points in the population studied and there was a decrease of the IMC of 2.75 points after educational intervention (p < 0.05). The decrease in weight, as well as the arterial pressure, showed statistically significant differences with respect to the initial measurements, with a difference of the PAM of 13.69 mm Hg at the conclusion of the study (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: An active-participative educational strategy is useful in the control of the PAM and IMC in the hypertensive patient.