Hypertension Controlling Ability and Self - care Behaviors of Patients Who Could and Could not Control Blood Pressure : Lam Thamenchai Hospital, Nakhon Ratchasima Province

Abstract

This comparative research was aimed at comparing the ability of hypertension controlling,
knowledge of hypertension, social support receiving, hypertension information receiving, and self -
care behaviors, between two groups of patients who could and could not control blood pressure.
Furthermore, it also studied complications occurrence and obstacles of blood pressure controlling of
hypertension patients at Lam Thamenchai hospital in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. The sample
group was 300 hypertension patients who had been diagnosed by a physician as hypertension and
underwent at least 3 times of treatment at the out-patient department. All of them, selected by
systematic random sampling, were over 15 years old and willing to answer questionnaire, Data was
collected during July - September 2012, then analyzed by descriptive statistics and independent
samples t-test.
In all, 50.7 percent of hypertension patients could control blood pressure. 65.1 and 61.5 percent
of patients who could and could not control blood pressure, respectively, had moderate level of
hypertension knowledge. Whereas 47.3 percent of those who could control blood pressure received
high level of social support, besides, 47.0 and 5.7 got moderate and low level support, respectively.
The majority, 64.2 percent of those who could not control blood pressure had moderate level of
social support. However, both groups had low level of hypertension information in 48.0 and 42.6
percent of them, respectively. In addition, the majority of those who could control blood pressure,
92.8 percent, had good level of self - care behaviors, but the majority of the other group, 77.7
percent, had moderate level of self - care behaviors. Both groups showed no significant differences
(p > 0.05) on all factors. Nevertheless, those who could control blood pressure had better general
self - care behaviors and on each aspect; such as, medication, dieting, exercising, stress management,
and risk factors controlling than the others with statistical significance (p < 0.01). Yet on self
- care behaviors by seeking health services, those who could not control blood pressure was better
than the other significantly (p < 0.01). Moreover, complications were reported in 21.1 of the study
group and 20.3 of the control. There were obstacles regarding practicing among the group that could
not control blood pressure, such as; food addiction in 9.5 percent of the group, negligence in dietary
control in 6.9 percent, too flaccid to exercise in 6.0 percent and lack of self - control in 4.3 percent
of the group, respectively. However, the group that could control blood pressure barely had these
obstacles.
Key words: hypertension, self - care behavior, blood pressure control