The clinical effects of a new management mode for hypertensive patients: a randomized controlled trial

The Internet, smartphones, and the application of health technology have great potential for hypertension management. We aim to evaluate a new mode of mobile health management with a social network application to guide blood pressure management in patients with hypertension.

Using a randomized controlled trial design, 120 hypertensive patients in the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University who volunteered to participate in the study were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group was divided into low, middle, or high-risk groups according to the cardiovascular risk stratification. The blood pressures of both the experimental group (the WeChat-guided new mode group) and the control group (the conventional mode group) were administered for three months.

With intervention, both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in the experimental group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P=0.016). The SBP and DBP of the experimental group after intervention were lower than those before intervention (P<0.001), which was not observed in the control group (P=0.056). There was no difference in the SBP drops in the low-risk, middle-risk, and high-risk groups (P=0.402). Similarly, no difference in DBP drop was observed (P=0.628). There were no differences in Colorado Pretrial Assessment Tool (CPAT) scores between the experimental group and the control group before intervention (P=0.509). After intervention, CPAT scores in the experimental group were higher than those in the control group (P<0.001). Before intervention, there was no significant difference in the Hypertension Patients Self-Management Behavior Rating Scale (HPSMBRS) scores, blood lipid, body mass index (BMI), and urinary microalbumin between the experimental group and the control group (P>0.05). After intervention, the HPSMBRS score in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.05). The HPSMBRS score of the experimental group after intervention was higher than before intervention, and BMI, urinary microalbumin, TC, LDL-C were lower than before intervention (P<0.05).

This new mode of mobile health management has a good effect on blood pressure control in patients with hypertension. It provides evidence for the application of mobile information technology for hypertension patients in clinical practice.