Jorjani Biomedicine Journal

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Background & Objective: Control of hypertension is based on lifestyle modification. Group discussion can be considered as an efficient method for health education. Therefore, this study was aimed to determine the effect of group discussion on the empowerment of patients with hypertension who were referred to two health centers in Tehran. Method: This was a pretest-post test, quasi-experimental study in a group. The convenience sampling method was used by randomly selecting 36 patients with primary hypertension, aged 30-65 years. They were divided into 4 groups of 9 people. Since the comparison of groups was not taken into consideration, they were not homogenized. For each group, six 90-minute group discussion sessions were held. The tools included demographic information checklists and verbal empowerment questionnaire of Elhani et al with the scale of perceived intensity, perceived susceptibility, efficacy, and control axis. The data were calculated and analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired t-test. Results: The average age of the subjects was 54 ± 8.4 years and 34.4% of the participants had a history of hypertension for 5 years. Group discussions could lead to improve the average empowerment of individuals (P=0.04). Furthermore, among all the aspects of empowerment, group discussions had the greatest impact on the perception and sensitivity levels (P=0.001 and P=0.02 respectively). Conclusion: In patients with hypertension, group discussions can lead to increased perception and sensitivity levels and also enhance the ability of individuals to control their lifestyles.

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Background and Objectives: Family-centered empowerment model is one of the patterns in the area of empowering patients in modification of risky behaviors. According to extensive health and economic consequences of brucellosis in the community, we decided to evaluate the effect of this pattern in risk behavior modification in patients with brucellosis.

Methods: The current study was a quasi-experimental study that was performed on 76 individuals with brucellosis in Chalderan County, 2013. All of the patients were allocated in intervention and control groups using stratified randomiztion. Data was collected using a standardized researcher-made questionnaire based on family-centered empowerment model in five structures including knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, self-esteem and behavior in two phases. The first stage was before the educational intervention and the second stage was performed two months after the intervention. To analyze data statistically, descriptive statistics and paired and independent t tests with the significance level of 0.05 were used.

Results: Mean and standard deviation of the patients' ages was 37.9 ± 14.7. Paired t-test results showed that the mean scores of knowledge (p<0.001), attitudes (p<0.001), self efficacy (p<0.001), self-esteem (p<0.001) and behavior (p<0.001) were significantly increased within the intervention group. However, the changes were not significant in the mean scores of knowledge (p=0.293), attitudes (p=0.106), self efficacy (p=0.225), self-esteem (p=0.105) and behavior (p=0.303) in the control group. According to the results of independent t-test, the mean scores increased considerably in all structures within the intervention group in comparison to the control group after the educational intervention (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Regular interventional programs and applying educational theories could be an effective method  in high risk behavior modification in patients with brucellosis. Therefore, such  programs should be implemented in a wide range.