How do you plan to measure the efficacy of your project titled “Decreasing Incidences of Hypertension in African American Adults in the Primary Care Setting through Education and Nutrition.”?
You can measure this through the outcomes. Be sure your outcomes are “measurable”. For example, an outcome may be a change in blood pressure measurement before and after an intervention.
Another example is change in perceived stress before and after an intervention, as measured by the PSS-10. Create at least one clinical outcome and one financial outcome for your DNP project.
Here are the interventions to measure the outcomes from; Interventions are as listed below:
Patients will be screened for primary (essential) hypertension and asked to participate in the study if their systolic is greater than 130mmHg and diastolic is greater than 80mmHg and have a diagnosis of primary hypertension.
1) Obtain a voluntary consent.
2) Record initial BP, BMI, weight, waist circumferences, blood work including A1C and lipid panel.
3) Participants will be given a pre-knowledge survey (and post-knowledge at the conclusions of the project) that assesses the patient’s knowledge on hypertension and the DASH diet (attached).
4) Education will be tailored to each participant and will include: (each session will be approximately 30 minutes in length with additional 10 minutes for questions and answers.)
A. Reducing sodium and encouraging the implementation of the DASH. Sodium intake should be less than 2.4 grams per day (Zilbermint et al., 2019).
B. Encouraging people to eat fruits and vegetables. The intake of fiber needs to be 20-35 grams per day (Schoenthaler et al., 2018).
C. Encouraging people to become more active through routine walking.
D. Avoid taking over the counter medications and supplements that may increase blood pressure-participants will be encouraged to always check with their physician first.
5) Raise awareness of complications and risks of hypertension through educations.
6) Monitor progress every two weeks (or more often if needed) through zoom/ phone class/ or live meetings (whatever works best for the participant).
7) Provide a food journal sample for participants to complete daily.
8) Educational packets containing educational material (information dash diet, food journal, and digestible meal plan), and, and a list of county food banks will be provided to each participant in the study.
9) If participant is experiencing any headache, chest discomfort, or shortness of breath the principal investigator will direct participant to dial 911 and seek emergency medical care.
10) At the end of the twelve-week time each participant will be returning to the clinic.
During the follow up assessment the principal investigator will distribute the post knowledge survey.
A blood pressure reading will be recorded along with the BMI, the weight, waist circumferences, and a repeat A1C and lipid panel will be drawn.
