Challenges in Nursing Education and Research

Abstract

Low sodium diet plays an important role in lowering blood pressure in hypertensive clients. However, to gain the most benefit of the diet, adherence to the diet is needed to be improved. A theory-based low-sodium diet education might improve the adherence of low sodium diet among hypertensive elderlies. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of theory-based low-sodium diet education on a low-sodium diet adherence in the elderly with hypertension. The study employed a quasi-experiment with design one group pre-test post-test design. A sample of 88 respondents who were recruited using purposive sampling participated in the study. The pre-test and post-test data were collected by Dietary Sodium Restriction Questionnaire (DRSQ). The data were analysed with paired t-test. The findings show that significant difference on mean of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural between before and after the intervention (p-value 0.000 < 0.05). The study indicated that determinant of adherence, namely positive attitude, subjective norms and perceived control behaviour were increased significantly after receiving theory- based low-sodium diet education. Therefore, the findings contributed as an evidence of effectiveness and feasibility of theory-based low-sodium diet education to be performed among hypertensive elderlies in Indonesia.