Online Health Education's Influence on Productive-Age's Population Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards Hypertension

Abstract

Introduction: Hypertension, the silent killer, affects around one billion people worldwide. Therefore, efforts are necessary to raise public awareness. Objective: This research aims to assess the interactive online health education's impact on hypertension public health domain in the productive-age population in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. Method: This non-randomized quasi-experimental study assessed the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding awareness of hypertension based on the comparison of pre-tests and post-test results after a virtual educational intervention. Recruitment of the participants was performed using a consecutive sampling method. Resident living in Ketabang and Pacar Keling sub-districts of Surabaya were recruited for this study. The study consisted of thirteen participants who took participated in a three-session educational intervention delivered virtually via Zoom Cloud Meetings. The study results were gathered using pre-test and post-test questionnaires via Google Forms. The knowledge domain was compared using a paired t-test, while the attitude and practice domains were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: After the educational intervention, the research disclosed significant differences between the knowledge and practice domain's pre-test and post-test mean scores (57.69 vs. 66.92; p = 0.046; and 31 vs. 32; p = 0.020). However, an examination of the attitude domain revealed indifference (33 vs. 34; p = 0.306). The impact of intervention via interactive online learning was demonstrated in this study by considerable improvements in knowledge and practice. However, the result of participants' attitudes did not alter significantly in this study. Conclusion: This study implies that providing public health promotion and education through online platforms can be used to improve hypertension awareness. Further better-designed and wider-scaled studies with a control group are needed to confirm our findings.