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Health-promoting text messages to patients with hypertension—A randomized controlled trial in Swedish primary healthcare

Borgström Bolmsjö, Beata LU ; Bredfelt, Jenny LU ; Calling, Susanna LU ; Glock, Hanna LU ; Nymberg, Veronica Milos LU orcid ; Bengtsson Boström, Kristina LU ; Jakobsson, Ulf LU orcid ; Nymberg, Peter LU orcid ; Pallon, Jon LU and Rööst, Mattias LU , et al. (2025) In PLoS ONE 20. p.1-14
Abstract

Due to the high prevalence and great cardiovascular risks of hypertension, we need effective and evidence-based treatment strategies. Health-promoting one-way text messages could be a beneficial complement to antihypertensive drugs. However, this has yet to be proven in a primary healthcare setting. The purpose of this study was to investigate if health-promoting text messages could improve patients’ blood pressure in primary care. The PUSHME (Primary care Usage of Health promoting Messages) randomized controlled trial included 401 patients from 10 primary health care centers in southern Sweden. Patients in the intervention group received four text messages weekly for six months along with treatment as usual. The PUSHME study was... (More)

Due to the high prevalence and great cardiovascular risks of hypertension, we need effective and evidence-based treatment strategies. Health-promoting one-way text messages could be a beneficial complement to antihypertensive drugs. However, this has yet to be proven in a primary healthcare setting. The purpose of this study was to investigate if health-promoting text messages could improve patients’ blood pressure in primary care. The PUSHME (Primary care Usage of Health promoting Messages) randomized controlled trial included 401 patients from 10 primary health care centers in southern Sweden. Patients in the intervention group received four text messages weekly for six months along with treatment as usual. The PUSHME study was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04407962). Patients in both the control group and the intervention group lowered their blood pressure during the study, but there was no significant difference in change between the groups. However, subgroup analyses showed that there was a significantly larger reduction in diastolic blood pressure favoring the intervention for patients with poor self-rated health: -4.5 mmHg vs -1.4 mmHg (p = 0.019), and patients with a sedentary lifestyle: -5.2 mmHg vs -2.4 mmHg (p = 0.034). Our findings indicate that text messages with lifestyle advice to a general hypertensive population do not have any significant effect on blood pressure. However, it could be an effective complement to conventional antihypertensive drug treatment for specific patient groups.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
PLoS ONE
volume
20
article number
e0314868
pages
1 - 14
publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
external identifiers
  • scopus:85217821041
  • pmid:39937817
ISSN
1932-6203
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0314868
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2025 Borgström Bolmsjö et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
id
ec7da0e0-1e00-4e63-9227-9a95a8963a71
date added to LUP
2025-03-28 16:47:31
date last changed
2025-08-16 03:45:49
@article{ec7da0e0-1e00-4e63-9227-9a95a8963a71,
  abstract     = {{<p>Due to the high prevalence and great cardiovascular risks of hypertension, we need effective and evidence-based treatment strategies. Health-promoting one-way text messages could be a beneficial complement to antihypertensive drugs. However, this has yet to be proven in a primary healthcare setting. The purpose of this study was to investigate if health-promoting text messages could improve patients’ blood pressure in primary care. The PUSHME (Primary care Usage of Health promoting Messages) randomized controlled trial included 401 patients from 10 primary health care centers in southern Sweden. Patients in the intervention group received four text messages weekly for six months along with treatment as usual. The PUSHME study was registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04407962). Patients in both the control group and the intervention group lowered their blood pressure during the study, but there was no significant difference in change between the groups. However, subgroup analyses showed that there was a significantly larger reduction in diastolic blood pressure favoring the intervention for patients with poor self-rated health: -4.5 mmHg vs -1.4 mmHg (p = 0.019), and patients with a sedentary lifestyle: -5.2 mmHg vs -2.4 mmHg (p = 0.034). Our findings indicate that text messages with lifestyle advice to a general hypertensive population do not have any significant effect on blood pressure. However, it could be an effective complement to conventional antihypertensive drug treatment for specific patient groups.</p>}},
  author       = {{Borgström Bolmsjö, Beata and Bredfelt, Jenny and Calling, Susanna and Glock, Hanna and Nymberg, Veronica Milos and Bengtsson Boström, Kristina and Jakobsson, Ulf and Nymberg, Peter and Pallon, Jon and Rööst, Mattias and Wolff, Moa}},
  issn         = {{1932-6203}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{1--14}},
  publisher    = {{Public Library of Science (PLoS)}},
  series       = {{PLoS ONE}},
  title        = {{Health-promoting text messages to patients with hypertension—A randomized controlled trial in Swedish primary healthcare}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314868}},
  doi          = {{10.1371/journal.pone.0314868}},
  volume       = {{20}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}