National mobilization on blood pressure monitoring

Name of the activity: National mobilization on blood pressure monitoring

Country/NMO: Iran (IMSA-Iran)

Program: Healthy Lifestyles & Non-Communicable Diseases

Contact information: [email protected] – 00989125279025

Type of the activity: Campaign. Combination of education and advocacy. Campaigns create awareness in society about a certain topic (education aspect) and try to funnel this awareness into pressure on the decision makers to adapt policies accordingly (advocacy aspect).

General description:

Because of the increasing concern on cardiovascular diseases, and also lack of information about the importance of prevention and monitoring between medical students, we want to run a campaign for monitoring blood pressure.

At first we try to train medical students by running workshops and giving pretest and post test in order to train and also evaluate them.

Second, we spread the campaign to the level of whole population in order to give monitor their blood pressure and also help them prevent its adverse effects by showing them ways to reach a healthier lifestyle.

Third, with the help of ministry of health we try to follow-up the patients who need and want to be treated.

Focus area:

Cardiovascular Disease

Problem statement:

According to GBD, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in IRAN and hypertension has an important role in these problems. Also, it is shown in different studies that hypertension prevalence is more than 20% between Iranian adults. Most of the adverse effects can be prevented if hypertension is diagnosed and treated on time. so it is necessary to monitor the population in order to increase their life expectancy and also decreasing unnecessary budget.

Target groups:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Elderly people

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Elderly people

Objectives and indicators of success:

1- Informing students about importance of public health and role of monitoring people for disease control

Indicator: Performing pretest and post test after classes

2- Training students on how to measure blood pressure and to give them advice for a healthier lifestyle.

Indicator: Performing pretest and post test after classes

3- Measuring blood pressure in general population

Indicator: The number of people whose blood pressure is measured

4- Informing people about controlling risk factors and healthy life styles.

Indicator: number of people who got our advice

5- Follow-up of patients with high blood pressure if they want (with the help of ministry of health for introducing clinics and also following them up in their treatment

Indicator: number of people who went for further follow-up

Methodology:

Step1: National Workshop

Target group: medical students

Goal: training medical students for increasing public health knowledge and its benefits and also teaching them how to measure blood pressure and how to teach people to decrease risk factors

Method: educational materials are provided by ministry of health and by the help of IFMSA and it is given to all off the participating locals to run the workshops.

Step2: Campaign

Target group: general population

Goal: measuring the blood pressure of people and give them information on how to control it

Method: this step has 2 parts, first running some stations in populated areas throughout cities for measurement and face to face contact, second is spreading information in social medias

Step3: Referral to a doctor for people with high blood pressure

Method: each person with hypertension or at risk of it, after personal consent will be introduced to certified clinics of ministry of health for further follow-up

Plans for evaluation:

1 and 2: Performing pretest and post test after classes

for evaluating the quality of learning we perform pretest and post test on 2 topics: 1- about their knowledge of public health and their attention to prevention ,and monitoring, not only treatment. marks of each student will be compared before and after the class.

3: this step is our major evaluation method. Because this program is performed in more than 15 locals with more than 10 stations each, we predict that more than 100 thousand measured blood pressures.

4: number of people who get advice for healthy lifestyle, our prediction is 20,000

5: number of people with high blood pressure who refer to clinics for follow-up and treatment.