Objective:

To evaluate the effectiveness of a training program of knowledge for hypertensive patients.

Method:

This was a quasi-experimental and interventional study of before and after without control group, in which was evaluated with a test the patient’s knowledge before and after the training. The test comprises nine questions on the definition, causes, symptoms, controls and drug treatment of hypertension. Two types of analysis were performed: one per question and one per patient. For the first, difference in the proportion of correct answers before and after training was calculated using McNemar test for dependent samples. For the second, the general level of knowledge was established by the number of correct answers. The improvement in the responses of each patient was associated with demographic variables. For these was used Stata software version 10.

Results:

The training was conducted with 45 individuals that improved their knowledge by 16% (p <0.05). Questions regarding medication were those with the greatest positive impact, while related to the causes of hypertension and control’s frequency had a negative impact. Associations among improvement of knowledge and demographic variables were not statistically significant.

Conclusions:

This work is able to determine that training is effective in general terms, although in some aspects it has failed. This allows identifying opportunities of improvement for future talks.

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