Support for Cardiovascular Health in African American Primary Care Patients

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Cardiovascular Diseases, Blood Pressure

In brief

Project Overview: Poor hypertension control has dire consequences for the African-American population who suffer greater death and disability from heart disease, stroke, and renal failure than whites. To reduce these health disparities it is critical to promote of a healthy lifestyle in regard to diet, exercise, adherence to medications, as well as other behaviors. However, physicians usually fail to address lifestyle behaviors in the context of the harried patient visit. Therefore, the investigators hypothesized that the investigators could reduce cardiovascular risk by providing additional support to persons with poorly controlled hypertension through phone calls from trained peer patients and visits to an office support staff member. Study Design: A single-blind, randomized, controlled trial in 280 African-American primary care patients aged 40-75 with poorly controlled hypertension (HTN). The intervention group receives a practice-based team intervention that combines peer coach with office staff (i.e., medical assistant or licensed practice nurse) visits to address lifestyle challenges. Both intervention and control groups receive informational materials and healthy soul food recipes from the American Heart Association. The 6 month intervention alternates monthly phone calls from peer coaches about lifestyle behavioral changes with office-based visits with the support staff member during which patients review and discuss low literacy slide shows about healthy behaviors as well as examine their personal cardiovascular risk profile.

Key facts

Study ID
NCT00948714
Run by
University of Pennsylvania
People needed
130
Starts
2008-05-01
Expected to finish
2011-01-01
Last updated by the study team
2017-07-21

Who can join

Age: 40 and older, up to 75. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

You may not qualify if…

Where it is running

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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