Poster Presentation
Friday, 21 July 2006
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Friday, 21 July 2006
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM
This presentation is part of : Poster Presentations III
An Exploratory Study of Health Promotion Lifestyle of Community Health Volunteers
Chen-Hung Chiang, BA, Pei-Lin Hsieh, MSc, PhD, Shu-Man Lin, BA, and Hsiao-Jung Chen, BA. School of Nursing, Chang Gung Institute of Technology, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan
Learning Objective #1: determine community health volunteers’ significant changes in lifestyle, blood pressure, body fat and body mass index after health promotion training courses
Learning Objective #2: identify the effective health promotion training courses in the cardiovascular disease prevention program
Prevention strategies and lifestyle interventions have been shown to reduce morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD). Community health volunteers play an important role and contribute significantly to health promotion in the general community. Training the community health volunteers to be a health promoter is beneficial because they are important community resources. The aim of this study was to evaluate any significant changes in lifestyle, blood pressure (systolic blood pressure, SBP and diastolic blood pressure, DBP), body fat and body mass index (BMI) after health promotion training courses. A pre-test-post-test design was used evaluate the training course of volunteers. The training courses comprised five components: measuring and understanding blood pressure; understanding CVD; nutrition; physical activity; and Chinese medicine care. Fifty-two community health volunteers were recruited and attended a training course for 3 months. A Heart Promotion Questionnaire (HPQ) was used to evaluate the change of lifestyle. The results revealed that there were significant differences in the total score of the HPQ. Although there was not significant difference in the level of BMI, SBP, DBP and body fat, there was a slight drop in the four measurements. It is important for community health volunteers to be aware of strategies to prevent CVD , not only in order to improve their own lifestyle but also to help others to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

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See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)