Background The health behaviors and blood pressure control of patients with hypertension who have had a stroke are unsatisfactory. A protocol of a comprehensive reminder system has been published, and the results of 3 months of implementation have demonstrated improved patient health behaviors and blood pressure control. The continuity of the intervention effect on these variables after 3 months was not clear. Objective The aim of this study was to determine the impact of a comprehensive reminder system intervention on health behaviors, medication adherence, blood pressure, disability, and stroke recurrence in patients with hypertension who have had a stroke from baseline to 6 months after discharge. Method A multicenter, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled trial was conducted with 174 patients with hypertension who have had a stroke. The intervention consisted of health belief education, a calendar handbook, weekly short message services, and telephone interviews. Data were collected at baseline and at 3 and 6 months after discharge. Results Repeated-measures analysis of variance and single-effect analysis revealed that, compared with the control group, improvements of health behaviors, medication adherence, blood pressure, and disability of participants in the intervention group were superior. From 3 to 6 months after discharge, these trends remained or continually improved, whereas a downward trend was observed in the control group. There were only 2 stroke recurrences within 6 months, and no statistically significant difference between groups was found. Conclusion The comprehensive reminder system improved patients' health behaviors and medication adherence and reduced blood pressure and disability; the effect extended to 6 months after discharge.

In this study, a facile polypiperazine-amide (PPA) composite nanofiltration (NF) membrane with nanomaterial graphene oxide (GO) incorporated into a polyamide (PA) layer for high water flux and anti-fouling was fabricated by interfacial polymerization (IP). The chemical composition, structure and surface properties of the fabricated PPA/GO and PPA composite NF membranes were characterized by FTIR, XPS, FE-SEM, AFM, zeta-potential and contact angle measurements. The separation properties and anti-fouling ability of the PPA/GO NF membrane were investigated and discussed. The experimental results indicated that the water flux of the PPA/GO (300 mgunder the operating pressure of 0.6 MPa, almost 1.4 times that of the PPA (without GO) membrane.However, the high salt rejection was still retained in the order of Na 2 SO 4 (98.2%) > MgSO 4 (96.5%) > NaCl (56.8%) > MgCl 2 (50.5%). An anti-fouling test revealed that the PPA/GO membrane had excellent antifouling properties due to the enhanced hydrophilicity and decreased roughness induced by the GO nanosheets. Thus, the PPA/GO membrane can be efficiently and endurably applied in water purification.

A program to encourage and support girls and women in pursuing their computer science interests.