INNOVATIVE PROGRAM USING SMART-PHONE BASED TELEMONITORING IN IMPROVING BLOOD PRESSURE CONTROL AND CHRONIC DISEASE SELF-MANAGEMENT FOR HYPERTENSIVES

Introduction: Recent meta-analysis concluded that home telemonitoring may represent a useful tool to improve blood pressure (BP) control. Aim and Methodology: To evaluate whether hypertensive patients who participate in smart phone based telemonitoring of BP will have increased reduction in blood pressure and better self management behaviour from baseline to 6 months follow up in a local primary care clinic. 105 hypertensive patients, who passed competency test in self-blood pressure measurement joined. All had mobile applications downloaded to their smartphones and taught the functions for recording home BP (HBP) readings. Aside from automated message response features based on inputted BP readings, the apps also has reminder prompts to facilitate BP readings recordings. Mean clinic and home systolic and diastolic BP readings, self-efficacy for managing chronic disease (SEM-CD) score were performed at baseline, 3-months and 6-months post-intervention. Regular HBP monitoring was defined as measuring HBP readings > 3 times per week. Results and Conclusion 51 male (48.6%) and 54 female (51.4%) patients, with mean age 57 (SD 8.9) years old completed the study. The baseline mean systolic (SD) and diastolic BP (SD) at clinic and home were 129.9 (11.8) / 81.2 (8.5) mmHg and 127.2 (11.1) / 77.2 (8.1) mmHg respectively. Both clinic and home mean systolic and diastolic BPs were statistically reduced at 3 and 6 months post-intervention. (SEM-CD) score was improved at 3 and 6 months, with statistical improvement at 3 months. In conclusion, smart phone-based telemonitoring was efficacious in reducing BP and enhancing self-management behavior in hypertensive patients.