Facilitators and barriers to hypertension self-management in urban African Americans: perspectives of patients and family members

Sarah J Flynn,1,2 Jessica M Ameling,1,2 Felicia Hill-Briggs,1–3 Jennifer L Wolff,4,5 Lee R Bone,1,3 David M Levine,1,4 Debra L Roter,3 LaPricia Lewis-Boyer,1,2 Annette R Fisher,6 Leon Purnell,6 Patti L Ephraim,2,7 Jeffrey Barbers,1,2 Stephanie L Fitzpatrick,1,2 Michael C Albert,1,8 Lisa A Cooper,1,2 Peter J Fagan,9,10 Destiny Martin,1 Hema C Ramamurthi,1,2 L Ebony Boulware1,2,7 1Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; 2Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, USA; 3Department of Health, Behavior, and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; 4Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; 5Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; 6Community and Provider Advisory Board, Johns Hopkins Center to Eliminate Cardiovascular Health Disparities, Baltimore, MD, USA; 7Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; 8Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, USA; 9Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; 10Johns Hopkins HealthCare LLC, Glen Burnie, MD, USA Introduction: We aimed to inform the design of behavioral interventions by identifying patients’ and their family members’ perceived facilitators and barriers to hypertension self-management. Materials and methods: We conducted focus groups of African American patients with hypertension and their family members to elicit their views about factors influencing patients’ hypertension self-management. We recruited African American patients with hypertension (n = 18) and their family members (n = 12) from an urban, community-based cl