The Effectiveness of Short Videos on Knowledge of Proper Home Blood Pressure Monitoring (HBPM) Among Malaysian Medical Students

Background

Hypertension is a major global public health problem, affecting about 1.13 billion people worldwide. It is often poorly controlled leading to many health complications, particularly cardiovascular diseases. Patients with hypertension are often managed in the primary care setting, where the use of home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) is an effective tool for diagnosing and managing hypertension. HBPM has been proven to improve blood pressure levels for at least twelve months when used in conjunction with co-inventions such as education interventions or support from health care professionals.

Around 15% of those with hypertension are young adults; aged between 18-39 years. The definition of 'young hypertension', however, has been defined as up to 45 years old. Developing hypertension at a young age puts this group at risk of earlier onset cardiovascular events. Nonetheless, there are many challenges in treating hypertension in young adults, including the perception that it is a disorder for older people; lack of health education; shortage of suitable educational materials; and limited health resources.

In order to engage with this group, social media has been described as having a favourable role in health interventions due to its popularity with vast numbers of users particularly the younger adults, its advantages mainly in health communication with patients, plus its promising impact on behavioural change.

In Malaysia, internet use is 88.7% in 2020, and 70.5% use internet at home making Malaysia's access to the internet higher than the world's average, however a little lower than the UK levels at around 94.6%. Internet accessibility is also available to the rural population as shared by a study done in the state of Sabah. As many as 93.3% use internet for social media with Facebook and WhatsApp being the most popular applications used. It is apparent that the young adults from the age range 20-49 makes up the majority of internet users. In the UK, it has been reported that those aged between 25-34 makes up for the largest group on Facebook.