Cambios en la ingesta de sal y práctica de ejercicio físico en pacientes hipertensos por educación sanitaria en el primer nivel de atención de salud.

Although it is assumed that health care education improves life style in hypertensive patients, there is no enough evidence to support its implementation. Objective: Evaluate the effect of health care education on salt ingestion and physical exercise in hypertensive patients. Methods: Descriptive, cross-sectional study based on surveys applied to 179 hypertensive patients who attended the internal medicine and cardiology outpatient clinics from June to July 2009. Chi square test was performed using the SPSS statistical package version 17.0. Results: 67% were females; 69% were older than 60 years of age; 72.1% had secondary school level or superior education level. Health care education was received by 25% of the participants, 22% had received printed material in the last 6 months. Having received health care education was not associated with less salt ingestion or with more physical exercise. Conclusions: Health care education did not influence salt ingestion and physical exercise in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]