Background and Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to gauge the efficacy of a healthy
lifestyle program on adolescents who are hypertensive as well as deficient in Vitamin D. It has been a
known fact that Vitamin D deficiency from birth to early childhood is linked to a higher risk of elevated
systolic blood pressure during childhood and adolescence.
Materials and Methods: This study employed a quasi-experimental research design which took a
purposive sample of 300 hypertensive adolescents who were formally diagnosed as Vitamin D deficient
and attended follow-up consultations in an out-patient paediatric clinic in Banha University Hospital in
Benha City, Egypt.
Several factors such as the respondents’ socio-economic data and family history of chronic disease were
taken into consideration when the study was done. The subjects’ healthy lifestyle practices were also
assessed both before and after they had been through the healthy lifestyle program. It also monitored the
subjects’ blood pressure and their intake of vitamin D before, during and after the course of the program.
The study’s subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire before and after the program to evaluate their
knowledge regarding hypertension and vitamin D deficiency. An observation checklist was used before and
after the program to evaluate the subjects’ practices when taking blood pressure measurements.
Results: The study showed that 72 percent of adolescents had a family history of hypertension. It
also showed that female subjects exhibited a remarkable improvement in terms of their healthy lifestyle
knowledge and practices after going through the healthy lifestyle program when compared to their male
counterparts. The study showed a statistically significant relationship between the adolescents’ healthy
lifestyle and their socio-demographic characteristics such as their gender being female aged between 14-18
years old with secondary education and having appropriate economic status and healthy house conditions.
The study also showed that among the male adolescent subjects, 94 percent were physically active, 60
percent were aged between 11-14 years and 55.7 percent had non-appropriate economic status.
Conclusion: The study concluded that the healthy lifestyle program was effective in changing the healthy
lifestyle knowledge and practices of the adolescent subjects which in turn enabled them to manage their
hypertensive condition and overcome their vitamin D deficiency. |
