Effectiveness of Online Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Systolic Blood Pressure, Diastolic Blood Pressure, and Heart Rate in Patients with Diagnosed Hypertension: A Randomized Clinical Trial

ABSTRACT

Background

Hypertension (HTN) is a serious medical disease and the main cause of cardiovascular diseases and premature death worldwide.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of online mindfulness-based stress reduction (OMBSR) on systolic blood pressure (BP), diastolic blood pressure (BP), and heart rate (HR) in patients with diagnosed hypertension.

Methods

The present study was a randomized clinical trial based on the pretest, posttest, and follow-up design. Thirty-four patients were included in the study by the Purposive Sampling method and randomly assigned to two groups of OMBSR and control. SBP, DBP and HR were measured the research data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni test using SPSS₂₆ software.

Results

The results showed that the “posttest” and “follow-up” scores of SBP, DBP, and HR in the mindfulness group decreased significantly compared to the pretest scores (P < . 001); while there was no significant difference between the scores of the control group at different times.

Discussion

OMBSR may have the potential to affect SBP, DBP, and HR, via treatment adherence in patients with hypertension.

Translation to Health Education Practice

Health educators may want to use OMBSR as a supplement to drug therapy solving problems related to patients with hypertension.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the unaffected assistance of the members of the Cardiovascular Research Center and Heshmat Hospital in Rasht, Iran.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical considerations

This article was taken from a doctoral dissertation in the field of psychology with an approval code of “97000615,” and an ethics code of “IR.IAU.TABRIZ.REC.1400.02” from the Tabriz branch of Azad University, as well as a clinical trial code of “IRCT20210531051454N1” from the Iranian Clinical Trial System.