THE IMPACT OF FAMILY-ORIENTED LIFESTYLE-BASED GROUP DISCUSSION ON THE CONTROLLING HYPERTENSION

Hypertension is a lifestyle-based control. In between education methods, group
discussion can be considered as an efficient and effective method for health education. The present study
has been conducted to evaluate the impact of family-oriented life-style based group discussion on
controlling hypertension of patients which referred to Urmia Seyyed al-Shohada super specialist
Cardiology University hospital.
Material & Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 50 hypertensive patients in an age range of 30-
60 years were selected in conscious sampling, and randomly divided in two groups of 25 members
repeatedly. The intervention group was divided into two subgroups of 12 and 13 members in order to
take better advantage from intervention. Blood pressure of both control and intervention groups was
measured and recorded prior to the beginning of intervention. In the experimental group, members
participated in four sessions, each lasting for 1 hour, per week for four consecutive weeks. After two
months of intervention, blood pressure of each patient was measured four times and the mean was
recorded as the patient’s blood pressure after intervention. SPSS software, version 20, was used for
analysis of the collected data.
Results: The results of the independent t-test showed no statistically significant difference between the
control and intervention groups in terms of systolic blood pressure (p=0/112) before intervention; but,
there was statistically significant difference between control and intervention groups in terms of systolic
blood pressure after intervention (p=0.0001). There was no statistically significant difference between
control and intervention groups in terms of mean numbers of systolic blood pressure before intervention
(p=0/115), but after the intervention, there were significant differences (p=0.0001).
Conclusion: Family-oriented lifestyle-based group discussion can decrease the systolic and diastolic
blood pressure in patients with hypertension; therefore, using this method is recommended to reduce
blood pressure in patients with hypertension