THE EFFECT OF A DIGITAL HEALTH INTERVENTION ON THE CONTROL OF HYPERTENSION AMONG PEOPLE LIVING WITH CANCER

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Objective: To examine the effectiveness of a digital health intervention on the control of hypertension among people living with cancer. Design and method: This was a retrospective study of 101 participants (average age of 67 years old) living with cancer and hypertension enrolled on mDoc’s digital CompleteHealthô platform between February 2020 to November 2021. The people were connected with a coach-led multidisciplinary team that provided self-care support and encouragement via CompleteHealthô. The multidisciplinary team engaged the people with regular digital nudges on monitoring their blood pressure, health education, nutritional advice, virtual exercise classes and co-created personalised action plans with them. Specialised support for their cancer diagnosis included ensuring adherence to their oncology treatment regimens. The change in blood pressure was calculated as the difference between their initial blood pressure value and the average of all subsequent blood pressure values entered on CompleteHealthô. Results: Of the 101 people with cancer and hypertension enrolled on the CompleteHealthô, 98 (97.0%) had at least one interaction with a health coach and 84 (83.2%) entered at least 1 subsequent blood pressure value after their baseline while 57 (56.4%) of them had entered at least 5 subsequent values. Of those with at least 1 value, 63 (75%) had a controlled BP while 48 (84.2%) of those with at least 5 values had controlled BP at the end-line. People with at least 1 subsequent value saw a change of 0.3 mmHg and 1.3 mmHg in their systolic and diastolic blood pressure respectively while people with at least 5 values saw a 2 mmHg and 1.7mmHg reduction in their systolic and diastolic blood pressures respectively. Conclusions: Our findings show that a digital health intervention was able to help people living with cancer and hypertension reduce their blood pressure via the use of a web platform, digital nudges, encouragement on the need to check blood pressure at home, exercise, and modification of lifestyles. It also showed that a greater number of interactions with the health coaches led to a greater reduction in blood pressure.