Randomized Clinical Trial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Dec 26, 2022; 14(12): 626-639
Published online Dec 26, 2022. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v14.i12.626
Impact of the virtual anti-hypertensive educational campaign towards knowledge, attitude, and practice of hypertension management during the COVID-19 pandemic
Andrianto Andrianto, Meity Ardiana, Ricardo Adrian Nugraha, Alqi Yutha, Bagus Putra Dharma Khrisna, Tony Santoso Putra, Achmad Rizal Shahab, Henny Andrianto, Irawati Hajar Kikuko, A'rofah Nurlina Puspitasari, Maltadilla Ratu Hajjrin
Andrianto Andrianto, Meity Ardiana, Ricardo Adrian Nugraha, Alqi Yutha, Bagus Putra Dharma Khrisna, Tony Santoso Putra, Achmad Rizal Shahab, Henny Andrianto, Irawati Hajar Kikuko, A'rofah Nurlina Puspitasari, Maltadilla Ratu Hajjrin, Department of Cardiology and Vascular Medicine, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya 60286, East Java, Indonesia
Author contributions: Andrianto A is the principal investigator, conceived the ideas and supervised the project; Ardiana M helped project administration, validation and funding; Nugraha RA initially wrote the manuscript and interpreted the data; Yutha A, Khrisna BPD and Nugraha RA highlighted the potential use of virtual health education for society during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and drafted the manuscript; Putra TS and Shahab AR provided the materials and access to crucial research components; Andrianto H, Kikuko IH, Puspitasari AN and Hajjrin MR participated in the design of the study and the visualization of the software; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: In order to conduct the study, approval was obtained on July 1st, 2020, with a decision of the Bioethics Committee at the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Airlangga (Ref. number 532/UN3/2020) under the name of Andrianto as principal investigator.
Informed consent statement: All participants provided virtual informed consent prior to participating in the study, without identifiable data. The schedule of enrolment, intervention and measurements according to Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Intervention Trials (SPIRIT) requirements. The study’s data were collected in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. The consent form documented the aims, nature, and procedure of the study. Anonymity and confidentially were strictly maintained.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.
CONSORT 2010 statement: CONSORT 2010 checklist of information to include when reporting a randomized trial.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Andrianto Andrianto, MD, PhD, Doctor, Senior Lecturer, Department of Cardiology and Vascular Medicine, Universitas Airlangga, Mayjend Prof. Dr. Moestopo 6-8, Surabaya 60286, East Java, Indonesia. andrianto@fk.unair.ac.id
Received: August 13, 2022
Peer-review started: August 13, 2022
First decision: September 5, 2022
Revised: September 11, 2022
Accepted: November 22, 2022
Article in press: November 22, 2022
Published online: December 26, 2022
Processing time: 127 Days and 10.9 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

One of the efforts to reduce hypertension rates in the community is through an educational campaign that refers to the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute curricula or abbreviated as NHLBI. However, during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, one of the hardest hit areas is health promotion, and there is a significant obstacle regarding the most effective way to transfer knowledge, attitude and practice towards society without transmitting the virus.

AIM

To evaluate the impact of the virtual anti-hypertensive educational campaign towards knowledge, attitude, and the practice of hypertension management in the primary care setting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

An online action research with a randomized crossover-controlled trial using a pretest-posttest control group design. The study was conducted in October 2020-April 2021. The population in this study were patients with hypertension who were treated in the Mojo primary health care setting. A purposive sampling technique was done to receive 110 participants using an online questionnaire and invitation letter.

RESULTS

A total of 110 participants were included in the analysis, 55 in the intervention group and 55 in the control group. Following the Virtual Anti-Hypertensive Educational Campaign implementation, the only parameter that showed significant improvement was knowledge and attitude (P < 0.001). There is no significant change in the practice parameters (P = 0.131).

CONCLUSION

The Virtual Anti-Hypertensive Educational Campaign implementation in our study population seems to be effective to improve knowledge and attitude of participants, nevertheless, this program seems to be ineffective to improve the practice of hypertension management aspect in participants. Future study with longer durations and more comprehensive programs need to be done to scrutinize the clinical impact of this program nationwide.

Keywords: Hypertension; Awareness; Knowledge; Attitude; Practice; Public health

Core Tip: In the unprecedented times of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many offices shut down across the world. Onsite classes and events were postponed and as a result, the educational health campaign has changed dramatically. With the distinctive rise of e-learning, health campaigns can be undertaken remotely by digital platforms. With this sudden shift away from the conventional campaign, in many parts of the globe, some are wondering whether the adoption of virtual learning will continue to persist post-pandemic and how such a shift would impact the perception and transfer of knowledge towards hypertensive patients. To keep the community safe, but still well-informed about the dangers of hypertension and how to build a healthy lifestyle, we decided to create a Virtual Anti-Hypertensive Educational Campaign. The importance of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the Virtual Anti-Hypertensive Educational Campaign towards knowledge, attitude, and the practice of hypertension management in the primary care setting during the COVID-19 pandemic.