Children can help adults in managing their hypertension, also known as high Blood Pressure (BP), with their direct and indirect positive influence on them, a five-year study by the researchers at the University of Hyderabad revealed.
The research of Prof. Meena Hariharan and Sandra Roshni Monteiro of Centre for Health Psychology, University of Hyderabad studied this aspect through quasi experiment on 250 schoolchildren from class 6 to class 9 who have an adult hypertensive person in their family, living under the same roof.
Was this universally true in case of all children? “Children who measured high on conscientiousness, achievement motivation, perseverance, tenacity, were curious, and trust in their influencing power on the adult were found to be successful as change agents in hypertension management of their adult family members,” said Prof. Meena Hariharan.
The researchers used different methods to inform the children about hypertension and these included educational videos with doctors explaining through illustrations and animations. The information covered practical aspects such as the causes, symptoms, role of medication, diet and exercise apart from the dangerous consequences of neglecting the same.
This was repeated thrice within a period of 4 weeks. The children were given a monitoring diary to be filled everyday checks on whether the adult hypertensive member in the family was reminded about the medicine, exercise routine, and prescribed diet on that day. The hypertensive adult was contacted at the beginning of the study and their adherence to the medication, diet and exercise were recorded. Apart from this the children were also administered various tests to measure a number of psychosocial parameters related to their personality and behaviour.
The children met the researcher once every seven days and submitted their monitoring diary and also interacted with her and shared their experiences. Before terminating the study, the adults were contacted once again and their adherence and BP were measured.
Prof. Meena Hariharan said the results clearly indicated the positive role played by the children and the findings showed that the adults showed better efficiency in their regularity in taking medicines, diet and exercise regimen when monitored by children. “Children have tremendous persuasive abilities that often results in either ‘giving in or giving up’ by the adults.”
The study proved that though the children were not specifically asked to share the contents of hypertension knowledge orientation with the adults, they did share. Using children in better management of hypertension serves two purposes – first, it is a low cost intervention for enhancing adherence among adult hypertensive patients and the second is laying a strong foundation on the lifestyle disease among kids at an impressionable age, argues Prof. Meena Hariharan.
