International Journal of Medical and Health Research

Authors
KrishnaBabu S, Abishek R, Praseeda. B. K, Soumya Gopakumar, Ramla Beegam M

Abstract
Introduction: Hypertension is managed by both lifestyle changesrnand pharmacological means. Nonpharmacological interventions plays a major rolernin both hypertensive and non-hypertensive individuals. Dietary modificationsrnare important for prevention and treatment of hypertension. But most of the hypertensivernpatients and families are unaware of importance of dietary modifications. Herernis an attempt to capture the difficulties faced in a family while cooking. rnObjective: Tornassess the difficulties faced by group of rural women of Kunnathukal panchayathrnwhile cooking in a family with hypertensive patient.rnMethods: Thisrnis a community based cross sectional study. Total 150 people selected forrnstudy. Out of 21wards of Kunnathukal panchayath, five wards were selected byrnsimple random method and 30 houses from each ward/cluster were selected. Housernto house visit was carried out and people interviewed with semi structuredrnquestionnaire. rnResults: Thernstudy subjects were of age group 22-75 years. In this 56% and 48% of the familyrndecreased salt and oil intake respectively. About 10% cook separate food forrnhypertensive. No dietary modification in 37.3% of family. By doing focusedrngroup discussion, we were able to find out that there was difficulty for thernother members of the family without hypertension especially children when thernsalt is adjusted for the common recipes.rnConclusion: Majorityrnof the households with hypertension faced hardships such as cooking separately and managing different levels of salt in thernrecipes. When the subject themselves becomes patient, most often there is nornone to monitor the dietary changes.