The effect of teaching/learning groups on retention of hypertension education.

Hypertension education was presented to clients involved in the Pedigree Oriental Screening for Hypertension (POSH) Program in Salt Lake City, Utah. These clients received the education in one of three teaching learning groups: those taught individually, those taught with nuclear family members, those taught in a small nonconsanginous group. Previous to the hypertension education program, clients complete a pretest. Following the hypertension educational presentation, and after having blood pressure evaluated, the client received a posttest. The posttest was an exact duplicate of the pretest. A Telephone Follow-up Questionnaire (TFQ) was offered to clients three to six months or seven to ten months following the POSH clinic visit. The TFQ replicated questions from the pretest and posttest. The replication of questions provided information which enabled retention of hypertension educational components to be measured. The TFQ also provided questions which permitted exploration of potential associated factors that may influence retention of hypertension information. Potential associated factors included: demographic and sociological data, number of family members present during the educational presentation, months elapsed between educational and follow-up, and whether or not the client had hypertension. The TFQ was evaluated by the utilization of Chi-square statistic and Stepwise Multiple Regression. The Chi-square established the bivariate relationships and the direction of significant relationships for the potential associated factors. The stepwise multiple regressions were utilized to determine the relative importance of the factors and whether associated factors were significant after observing the number of elapsed months. The study suggests that hypertension education is most effective when conducted in nuclear family or small nonconsanginous groups. Hypertension education is least effective when presented individually. In addition, hypertension information is most readily attained by subjects having more than 12 years of education and by those who have at least one other hypertensive family member. Females tended to score higher on the pretest and did males.