S-34-3: THE HEALTH AWARENESS AND SPILLOVER EFFECTS OF A COMMUNITY INTERVENTION BY HOME BLOOD PRESSURE MEASUREMENT: NOSE STUDY

Abstract

Objective: This study examined participants’ health-related awareness, changes in health consciousness, and their spillover effects observed through community-wide home blood pressure (BP) monitoring intervention. Method: This study was based on an ongoing community-based intervention study in Nose, Osaka, which was designed to assess the effect of home BP measurement on prolonging healthy life expectancy. This study included 446 participants aged 40–91 years. We asked participants to measured their home BP with an electronic oscillometric device (HEM-7281; Omron Healthcare CO., Ltd) twice in morning and evening and record the values in the diary. About six months later, we asked the participants by mailed questionnaire about the status of continued measurement and changes in medication and health awareness. Results: The responded participants were 414(93.8%), and we analyzed 400 without missing data. Of the analyzed participants, 30% were on hypertension treatment. The number of participants who continuously measured every morning and evening was 348(87.0%).Of those, 301 (75.3%) newly started measuring as a result of the intervention. In their responses, the changes in health awareness or consciousness resulting from continued home BP measurement were, in descending order, “became more aware of my own and family members’ BP,“ “became more aware of my own physical condition,“ and “became more conscious of dietary content,“. In addition, a spillover effect of further measurement promotion in the household was recognized, such as “family members started taking measurements“ and “couples are calling out to each other to take measurements. After the start of HBP measurement, 32 (8%) of the participants newly started taking antihypertensive medication based on the home BP values. Conclusion: We found that home BP measurement can help even non-hypertensive individuals to become aware of changes in their physical condition and improve their health awareness. In addition, BP measurement behavior in the home was found to have spillover effects, such as increasing family members’ interest in BP and promoting home BP measurement behavior. It was suggested that measuring home BP for everyone, including non-hypertensives, is effective in health promotion and disease prevention for the entire community, including those who are indifferent to their own health.