Impact of a community health worker led intervention for improved blood pressure control in urban Nepal: an open-label cluster randomised controlled trial

Background

Effective control of hypertension remains challenging in low and middle-income countries. We tested the effectiveness of comprehensive approaches to hypertension management including six home visits by community health workers with regular follow up by a trained healthcare provider on blood pressure levels in Nepal.

Methods

We implemented a non-blinded, open-label, parallel-group, two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial, with 1:1 allocation ratio in Budhanilakantha municipality, Kathmandu, Nepal. Ten public health facilities and their catchment area were randomly allocated to receive comprehensive intervention or only usual hypertension care. We recruited 1252 individuals aged 18 years and older with hypertension. The primary outcome was systolic blood pressure. Secondary outcomes were diastolic blood pressure, proportion with controlled blood pressure, waist to hip ratio, body mass index, physical activity, diet quality score, daily salt intake, adherence to antihypertensives, hypertension knowledge and perceived social support. Primary analysis was by intention-to-treat using a linear mixed model.

Findings

Participants were, on average 57 years old, 60% females, 84% married, 54% Brahmin/Chettri ethnicity and 33% were illiterate. The decrease in mean systolic blood pressure (1.7 mm Hg, 95% CI −0.1, 3.4) and diastolic blood pressure (1.6 mm Hg, 95% CI 0.5, 2.6) was more in the intervention arm compared to the control. The proportion with blood pressure control (OR 1.5 95% CI 1.0, 2.1) and engaging in adequate physical activity (≥600 Metabolic equivalents of task per week) (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.6, 3.1) were higher in the intervention arm compared to control. The change in hypertension knowledge score was higher and daily salt intake was lower in the intervention arm compared to control. Waist to hip ratio increased more and global dietary requirement scores decreased more in the intervention group and there was no effect on the body mass index and adherence to antihypertensives.

Interpretation

Community health workers facilitated home support and routine follow-up care by healthcare providers was effective in controlling blood pressure in urban Nepal. These findings suggest comprehensive interventions targeting individual, community and health system barriers are feasible in low resource settings, but larger implementation trials are needed to inform future scale-up.

Funding

This work was supported by Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway (Project number 981023100).