Information and communication technologies of arterial hypertension: controlled clinical trial Tecnologías de la información y comunicación en hipertensión arterial: ensayo clínico controlado

Abstract

Objective: Determine the effectiveness of a telephone follow up strategy associated to text messages, in the capacity of self-care agency of patients with arterial hypertension that attended to an outpatient consultation in a clinic in Santander. Methodology: The clinical trial was performed with pre and post trials in 130 hypertense patients aleatorily selected in two parallel groups: the intervention group (1) received the strategy of telephone and text messages follow up for a period of two months and the control group (2), was attended normally in the outpatient consultation.  The pre and post-trial were applied to each group through a survey of capacity of self-care agency of the hypertense patients, designed by Achury et al, with validity and reliability of 0.75, before and past 2 months. Results: The capacity of self-care agency through the telephone and text messages follow up strategy allowed: passing from medium to high with the intervention applied during the two moths, the hypertension status going from II to I, a greater knowledge of the disease and its pharmacological treatment, an increase of physical activity, healthy nutrition and family support, which indicates that the intervention generates changes that benefit the empowerment and control of self-care. Conclusions: The telephone and text messages follow up strategy is effective for the improvement of the capacity for self-care, and at the same time allows having a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship since the patient feels motivated to acquire favorable self-care conducts.