Effects of using a mobile health application on the health conditions of patients with arterial hypertension: A pilot trial in the context of Brazil’s Family Health Strategy

Abstract

Brazil's Family Health Strategy (FHS) leads public health policies and actions regarding community health, addressing arterial hypertension (AH) in primary care settings. In this scenario, the use of communication technologies becomes appropriate for the monitoring of patients with AH. To preliminary verify the intervention approach and the effects of using an m-Health application on the health conditions of patients with AH for a future study, we conducted a non-randomized, controlled, non-blind trial (N = 39), comparing the use of a mobile health app (m-Health) with conventional AH monitoring over 3 months. During the study, we promoted health information workshops to engage patients from both intervention and control groups. Pre and post-intervention, we compared measurements of systolic and diastolic blood pressure; food frequency questionnaire; Appraisal of Self-Care Agency Scale; blood tests of hemogram, creatinine, uric acid, sodium, potassium, lipid profile, and glycemia. Improvements were identified in both groups due to the workshops, including the reduction in total and non-HDL cholesterol, healthier consumption of salads and sugary drinks, and increased selfcare scores. Exclusively in the intervention group, which used the m-Health app, there was a change in systolic and diastolic pressure towards more adequate levels. In addition, the intervention group had improved levels of glucose and HDL cholesterol and reduced consumption of ultra-processed foods. In conclusion, the use of an m-Health app had positive effects on the health conditions of patients with AH under treatment within FHS, especially when combined with health information. On the context of FHS, the use of technology is encouraging supporting better health conditions. Arterial hypertension (AH) is one of the main modifiable risk factors for diseases of the circulatory system. With a high prevalence, AH is considered one of the most important public health problems. The World Health Organization estimates that about 600 million people have AH and, annually, 7.1 million individuals die from this disease, substantially burdening health systems 1. Among the AH modifiable factors, either by medication or by altering habits and behavior, there is obesity, sedentary lifestyle, eating habits, and stress. Controlling blood pressure can still be a challenge since, with everyday activities and lack of time, many people do not bother to maintain their normal blood pressure levels 2. Among the main non-medicinal recommendations that should be followed, there are healthy eating, physical activity, reduction of sodium and alcohol consumption, and non-consumption of tobacco 3 .

Using a mobile health app to improve patients’ adherence to hypertension treatment: a non-randomized clinical trial

“…Health apps can help patients self-manage their health conditions, improve selfassessment, treatment, and control of high blood pressure, including features to collect treatment monitoring data (Lu et al, 2019;Liang et al, 2018). Several studies state that participants who used technological resources as an intervention obtained better results when compared to the control group (Debon et al, 2020;Morawski et al, 2018;Andre, Wibawanti & Siswanto, 2019;Márquez Contreras et al, 2019), similar to our results. Furthermore, apps facilitate communication between patients and healthcare professionals and contribute to patient education (Santo & Redfern, 2019;Debon et al, 2019).…”

Kinesiotherapy With Exergaming as a Potential Modulator of Epigenetic Marks and Clinical Functional Variables of Older Women: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

“…Technological solutions are flexible and have the potential to be accessible, reaching more users at the same time [ 54 ]. They also introduce a new style of rehabilitation and practice of physical activities, allowing health professionals to remotely assess the progress of patients and adjust the training strategy accordingly, offering customized experiences related to each user profile, while motivating patients by engaging family members, caregivers, and friends [ 55 , 56 ]. However, a considerable part of the exergames used in physiotherapy is derived from commercial sources [ 52 , 57 - 60 ], generally not designed exclusively for the older population, or are not based on specific therapy protocols [ 61 ].…”

Individual Attribute Selection Using Information Gain Based Distance for Group Classification of Elderly People With Hypertension

“…According to The entropy of TC, LDL-C, HDL-C, BMI, and SM was presented in Table 3. 3) Determining information gain of the target group regarding all attributes Initially, the entropy of all attributes ( ( )) was computed by (15). The ( ) was equal to 0.67 as follows: Hence, the information gain of the target group regarding all attributes ( ( , )) was computed by (16).…”

“…Nevertheless, an increasing number of elderly hypertensive patients create a shortage of healthcare professionals. To aid the shortage of healthcare providers, personalized healthcare applications designed for hypertension management through digital technology have been applied for supporting elderly people with hypertension and their healthcare providers [14]- [15]. According to healthcare professionals' suggestions, a lifestyle change is recommended for hypertension management [16].…”