Counseling Hypertensive Patients: An Observational Study of 21 Public Health Nurses

This study observed the public health nurse's and the patient's activity level during blood pressure measurement and the kind of nonpharmacological treatment that was given. Using the Nurse Practitioner Rating Form, three structured observations were made of 21 public health nurses at their offices at health care centers. The nurses were randomly selected from 22 health care centers in Southern Sweden. The public health nurses used nonpharmacological treatment at 18 out of 63 visits, mainly diet and physical activity. The nonpharmacological conversation had a psychosocial aspect at 15 observations. During the visits, most of the facts and advice concerned somatic aspects of health promotion. Almost all patients were asked about their medication. At more than half of the observations, the nurses and the patients met at the same medium or high communication level. The nurses need training and information about nonpharmacological treatment to practice health promotion in hypertension care.