Hypertension-Related Healthy Information Seeking Behavior of Hypertensive Individuals Living in Rural Areas – Cross-Sectional Survey

Hypertension is one of the major contributors towards global mortality and associated morbidity. This study was conducted to explore the hypertension-related healthy information seeking behavior of hypertensive individuals living in rural areas.

Hundred participants age more than 18 years were included in the study from the Internal Medicine Outpatient Department of private Medical College of India. Variable information gathered included socio-demographics, technology access, health literacy, and the educational modules that might be necessary to design relevant hypertension-related health educational program.

Eighty six percent of the participants encountered problems in understanding about their medical conditions due to difficulties in understanding written information. None of the participants have ever seen or knew about any complication related to hypertension which may have prompted them to seek further information and all of them reported no change in pattern of seeking information related to hypertension.

There is a need of future research for exploring interventions which can fulfill the existing gap of hypertension-related knowledge delivery between hypertensive patient and care provider.