The Community Participation for Health Behaviors Improving the Populations at Risk for Hypertension. A case Study of Ban Nongmek, Danchang sub-district, Bua Yai district, Nakhon Ratchasima Province

Abstract

Hypertension is a chronic disease that is a major health problem. Patients who do not receive treatment and control their blood pressure to normal levels will cause complications due to the damage of blood vessels and blood clots, their body’s organs are found to have limited function or malfunction, leading to the presence of stroke, heart attack, renal failure, paralysis, and consequently premature death. In Thailand, the prevalence rates of patients with hypertension tend to continuously increase over time. This indicates a need for actions to tackle this problem. About 10% of at-risk populations have hypertension, which is double higher than those who are not at risk. Excessive intake of salt and a lower intake of fruits and vegetables with potassium, lower physical activities and being overweight, alcohol consumption, smoking and excessive consumption of high-fat foods are major risk factors of hypertension. Therefore, the reduction of such risk factors could lower the possibility of having hypertension.

This research aims to utilize the concept of community participation to influence and change health behaviors and normalize blood pressure among populations who are at risk for hypertension. This study has a total of 35 populations who are screened and evaluated as having a risk for hypertension, having a systolic blood pressure of 120-139 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure of 80-89 mmHg. Activities promoting the community participation fall under 4 stages including (1) planning project activities (2) performing activities as planned to change the populations’ health behaviors (3) processing monitor and evaluation and (4) giving feedback reflecting the project activities. The population in this study are interviewed from May to July 2019. Descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation are used to analyze the data. A paired t-test is also used to compare the means of scores for different domains including knowledge about hypertension, health behaviors, and blood pressure between before and after the project.

Populations’ characteristics: 80.0% of the populations at risk for hypertension are females, 57.1% are aged between 51 – 60 years. 71.4% are married, 91.4% have only primary school level, and 57.1% are agricultural workers.

Comparing the average knowledge scores, health behavior, blood pressure level Before and after the activity It was found that the average scores after the activities were significantly different from those before the activities (p-value <.001).