Comparing the Effectiveness between mHealth and Face-to-Face Self-Management Programs for Thai Civil Servants with Uncontrolled Hypertension: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Uncontrolled hypertension increases the risk of complications and premature death, which is a significant global public health concern. Self-management is a concept that involves personal strategies to create self-awareness that leads to changes in self-management behavior. This quasi-experimental study compares self-awareness and self-management behaviors for controlling hypertension: restriction of sodium intake, alcohol consumption, smoking cessation, stress reduction, and increased exercise between the mHealth and the Face-to-Face self-management programs. The participants comprised 50 civil servants affiliated with the Secretariat of the House of Representatives, of whom 25 received the mHealth program, and 25 received the Face-to-Face program. Group assignments conducted simple random sampling and matched the age, gender, and education level matching. Research tools included the two programs, the Self-Awareness Assessment and the Self-Management Behaviors Assessment instruments. Descriptive statistics, the chi-square test, the t-test, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and the Mann-Whitney U test were used to analyze the data.

The findings indicate that, after the experiment, the mHealth group showed a statistically significantly higher mean rank of self-awareness and self-management behaviors than the Face-to-Face group. This study confirmed the mHealth self-management program’s effectiveness over the Face-to-Face Program in increasing self-awareness and self-management behaviors at 12 weeks. Nurses can integrate this program to promote health among Thai people who have access to LINE application communication tools to prevent new cases of hypertension and control hypertension. However, further testing in other population groups is required before it can be widely used nationally.