Middle-aged and Older Adults with Hypertension in Rural Communities

Health Literacy and Health Promotion Behaviors Among Middle-aged and Older Adults with Hypertension in Rural Communities: a Mixed Methods Study

Does the m-Health intervention have a positive effect on the health literacy and health promotion behaviors of the study participants?

This study adopted a mixed methods study, and the first stage was a qualitative research design. The second phase was a quantitative research design aims to evaluate the effectiveness of applying healthy lifestyle intervention on the health literacy and health promotion behaviors among middle-aged and older adults with hypertension in rural communities. Recruitment is planned to be conducted in the cardiology outpatient clinic of a regional teaching hospital in the south. It will be a random assignment, single-blind, experimental research design, using simple random sampling to assign to the experimental group and the control group (experimental group: hypertension health education manual + m-Health; control group: hypertension health education manual), a two- month intervention program was carried out, and the questionnaire survey was conducted three times: once as a pre-test and twice as post-tests (during the 4th week and the 8th week of the intervention). Data analysis was conducted using statistical software (SPSS, version 22.0) for data management and statistical analysis, and analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, chi-square test, and generalized estimating equations (GEE).

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Diagnosed with hypertension for one year or more (including) and controlled with medication (systolic blood pressure ≥ 130 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure ≥ 80 mmHg).
2. Aware hypertensive patients aged ≥ 45 years with the ability to read and write.
3. Able to take medication independently.
4. Own a smartphone and are able to use it, and are willing to receive text messages (TxtM) or mobile health interventions (m-Health).
5. Agree to participate in the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Have cognitive impairments or mental disorders.
2. CCI (Charlson Comorbidity Index) score ≥ 3.