Improvement of patients' knowledge by a single educational meeting on hypertension

Objectives: A poor therapeutic compliance is a major cause of insufficient control of hypertension. As education of patients is fundamental in order to improve their compliance, we organised two pilot educational meetings aimed at (1) assessing the support of patients to this kind of meetings, and (2) verifying the impact on patient's education. Methods: We invited 225 consecutive patients referred to our Hypertension Clinic (some of them regularly followed up and some referred for the first time) to participate to an educational meeting on hypertension. Patients were divided in two groups, for organising reasons each attending a single meeting. Each meeting included four sessions: (1) the first session included a multiple choice questionnaire (nine questions, with answers collected by an interactive electronic system) in order to evaluate the degree of patient's information about hypertension (definition, prevalence, aetiology, complications and treatment), (2) a traditional teaching session, (3) an interactive phase aimed to assess the improvement of knowledge in which the same questions as in the first session have been asked again, and (4) a general discussion session. Results: A total of 144 patients (mean age 54 +/- 12 years; 76 M, 68 F) of the 225 invited attended the meeting. The answers to our questions in the initial session were correct in a percentage ranging from 60% to 80%. During the third phase immediately after the teaching session, the percentage of correct answers increased significantly (range: 75-98%, P < 0.05 at least in all questions). Conclusions: This study shows: (1) a satisfactory adherence of patients to this educational initiative; (2) a positive impact of a single educational meeting on patient's knowledge about issues related to hypertension. The potential role of improving patient's education on clinical outcomes such as blood pressure levels and the rate of blood pressure control requires future controlled studies.