[The control of arterial hypertension in primary care: the evaluation of a program of self-care].

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of a self-care hypertension programme within primary care.

Design: Two models of intervention by means of self-care were compared, both using individual education and family support, with one of them using group education.

Setting And Patients: All those attending 10 health centres in Andalucía and who had a recent diagnosis of light or moderate Hypertension or with their hypertension not monitored over the preceding 6 months, were included.

Measurements And Main Results: These 160 people were assigned at random to the intervention group (group education) or the control group (individual education). Data analysis provided the results for the 95 people who completed the study. Both systolic and diastolic arterial pressure (SAP and DAP) diminished significantly during the study period, both in the sample as a whole and in the intervention group. However, the lessening of systolic pressure only reached statistically significant differences in the control group. Over the study period, the lessening of SAP was 6.2 in the intervention group and 8.0 in the control group; whereas the lessening of DAP was 7.0 in the intervention group and 2.3 in the control group.

Conclusions: Arterial hypertension can be controlled in primary care by health education for self-care. On the basis of this study's findings, it is not valid to conclude that group is more efficacious than individual education.