Hypertension management for community dwelling older people with diabetes in Nanchang, China: a cluster randomised controlled trial

This abstract was prepared for the inaugural 'HDR Student Conference', Flinders University, November 2018. Copyright © the authorBackground Although China has a large number of older people living with diabetes and hypertension, the primary care system is underdeveloped and so management of these conditions in community care settings is suboptimal. Methods A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted to randomly allocate 10 wards from four hospitals in Nanchang to either an intervention group (N=5) or a usual care group (N=5). In total, 270 patients were recruited in the study. The intervention included individualized self-care education and medication management prior to discharge and in the 6-month follow-up in community health service centres. A multilevel mixed-effect linear regression model was applied to compare the changes in health outcomes between the intervention and usual care groups. Results The intervention group demonstrated a statistically significant decrease of a mean systolic blood pressure of 10.7 mm Hg (95%CI: -14.2 to -7.1, P<0.001) and a mean diastolic blood pressure of 4.1 mm Hg (95% CI: -6.2 to -2.0, P