Sinahon, K. G. (2016). Strengthening the hypertension program through health awareness promotion in the upland barangays of Dalaguete, Cebu (Unpublished master's thesis). Graduate School of Public and Development Management, Development Academy of the Philippines.

Graduate School of Public and Development Management. Health Systems and Development. Batch 7 Thesis (MPM-HSD)--Development Academy of the Philippines.

Hypertension had been a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In fact, according to the WHO (2005). It was considered a major risk factor for stroke and often remains underdiagnosed and inadequately treated. In Dalaguete, it continued to be part of the morbidity and its consequences such as stroke and heart attack had been a leading cause of death. The current trend of this disease had lead the researcher into looking at the hypertension in the upland barangays of Dalaguete, Cebu. It specifically seeks to identify the non-modifiable and modifiable factors that affect the Stages of hypertension. the gaps and barriers had also been checked in the perception of the health personnel and the hypertensive themselves. The suggested strategies had also been determined. The study was a mixed quantitative and qualitative type. It was conducted in the 17 upland barangays of Dalaguete, Cebu from November 2016 to March 2016. The gathering of data was comprised of two parts. The first part utilized the DOH Risk Assessment forms on which the non-modifiable and modifiable factors were determined among the 40-79 years old to a total of 325 hypertensives. The non-modifiable factors include: Age, Sex and Family history, for the modifiable fro the BMI, Diet, Alcohol consumption, Smoking and Physical Activity. All the statistics tools used for testing association wad chi square test of independence where in a compound p-value < 0.05alpha were considered significant. For the data processing , it was aided with IBMSPSS ver 21 software for computational accuracy purposes. The second part was a two-part Focus Group Discussion of which the first was participated by 13 diagnosed hypertensives, composed of 10 Health Care Personnel on which 9 were females and one male. The results of the study of the non-modifiable factors showe that among the participants 56 years is the mean age, most of them were female (60%) and most has a family history of hypertension (75%). The modifiable factors showed that most of the hypertensives were non-smokers (48%), never consumed an alcohol (35%), within the normal BMI (38%), had high fat/ high salt food (54%), consumes 3 servings of vegetable within a week (34%), 2 servings of fruits within a week (7%) and has a physical activity (69%). The data were corelated to the Stages of hypertension and most were found non-statistically corelated except for the Age and Passive smokers (mostly of Stage 2 hypertensives). The gaps and barrier were identified and it shows that there is a gap on the knowledge of the health care workers and the hypertensive patients. It also showed that considering the intention barriers both were less motivated, has difficulties in dealing with health habits and poor health prioritization and poor health seeking behaviors of the patients. It was also exhibited that access to health service like medicine is a challenge among the health care personnel and the hypertensive patients, factors affecting it predominantly due to its poor geographical location. To address the gathered data, several actions had been done inlcuding the promotion of health and increasing awareness among the hypertensives through a scheduled barangay based on health assemblies. A hypertension program was established through a hypertension club: PITIK. The referral and follow up was also improved.