Abstract
This descriptive research aimed at studying factors related to blood pressure
controls in patients with hypertension attending Thabsakae Hospital, Prachuap Kiri Khan
Province. The subjects comprised 340 patients with hypertension who continuously attended
the outpatient department of Thabsakae Hospital in the period October 1 to December 30,
2007. Simple random sampling was conducted by using an interview questionnaire. The method for analyzing the data were frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation.
A chi-square test was employed to determine the factors associated with blood pressure
controls.
The factors were identified as age, sex, marital status, education, occupation,
income, knowledge about hypertension, self-care behavior, body mass index, period of
illness and presence of other co-morbidities, by compliant hypertensive patient care control
groups, that is, those with a blood pressure of less than 140/90 mm Hg (at least 3 SD),
and accepting those with a diastolic blood pressure of more than 140/90 mm Hg (only 1
SD); however, those with a diastolic blood pressure equal to or more than 92 mm
Hg were those considered as having high blood pressure that could not be controlled
(at least 5 SD), The research results show that occupation, self-care behavior and body
mass index were statistically significant with blood pressure controls in patients with
hypertension (p<0.05). This finding can be applied to plan and develop an appropriate
method for controlling blood pressure in patients with hypertension.
