Effects of A Faith-Based Health Devotional on Illness Representation of High Blood Pressure in African Americans

The African American population has persistently suffered a greater disease burden from uncontrolled high blood pressure than any other ethnic/racial group. There have been many attempts to reduce the health disparity but with little changes in adverse outcomes over the years. As African Americans are very religious and incorporate spirituality into their everyday lives, this research followed a faith-based approach and was conducted in the church setting. The study was guided by the Illness Representation Model (IRM) and the Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality (TCCDU). One hundred male and female participants were recruited from five African American churches in Southeast Florida. Each participant met the inclusion criteria of being 35-80 years old, diagnosed with high blood pressure, members/attendees of a Judeo Christian church, and able to read and write English. A researcher-developed, five-day faith based health devotional which included high blood pressure education infused with Bible messages was used as the intervention. A quasi-experimental design of pre and posttesting was employed to evaluate high blood pressure knowledge and illness representation. High blood pressure knowledge was tested using the High Blood Pressure Prevention IQ Quiz (HBPP-IQ) and illness representation tested with the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R). The results demonstrated statistically significant improvements in four out of the five hypotheses tested, with a caveat for the timeline representation (presented as two separate outcomes). The findings indicated: High blood pressure knowledge (HBPP-IQ): p < .000; Illness Representation (IPQ-R); timeline acute/chronic: p = .003; timeline cyclical: p = .20; consequences: p = .024; personal control: p = .0005; treatment control: p = .002. These results support the use of the faith-based teaching method in educating African Americans about high blood pressure as an effort that might improve illness representation in this population.