Effect of team-based individualized health management on health literacy and health status among hypertensive patients

Abstract

Objective To explore the effect of team-based individualized health management on health literacy and health status among hypertensive patients in community. Method This study was a self-controlled quasi-experimental design. A two-stage cluster random sampling method was used. Two neighborhood committees among 23 neighborhood committees in Desheng community were randomly sampled. The name list of hypertensive patients were obtained from the 2 sampled neighborhood committees, getting one from each five, 470 in total before intervention and 444 in total after. The two groups of patients before and after intervention had comparability in the social demographic characteristics as the age (67.16± 9.84, 66.47±10.50 years), the gender (the male accounted for 47.00% and 44.10%), the ethnicity (the Han accounted for 93.80% and 92.30%) and the marital status (the married accounted for 91.30%, 88.90%) (t= 1.447 χ2 =0.774, 1.595, 2.555,P>0.05) . Since July 2013, Desheng community health service center intervened the hypertensive patients by team-based individualized health management. After one year, we compared the change of their health literacy and health status. Result After health management, the proportion of hypertensive patients with adequate health literacy increased from 38.50% to 53.40%, The average rate of health knowledge awareness among them increased from 65.30% to 75.30%. The average accuracy of health services utilization skills of them increased from 49.10% to 70.90%, lifestyle behaviors in dietary and in exercise the average increase was from 35.55, 17.07 to 37.05, 21.28 respectively, after the intervention the patients did better work in self management behavior, such as self-test of blood pressure, medication compliance and control of salt intake (74.40%, 87.60%, 80.00%) were obviously better than before intervention (61.30%, 68.30%, 62.20%), and the differences were statistically significant (χ2=16.813, 48.295, 52.058,P<0.05). After health management, the self-report health was better among hypertensive patients. The proportion of them with normalized blood pressure increased from 72.90% to 79.50%, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusion Team-based individualized health management could increase health literacy of hypertensive patients in community and improve their health status obviously. Key words: Hypertensive; Health literacy; Health status