Journal of Clinical Case Reports

Evaluation of Hypertension Self-Care scales for Psychometric and Practical Quality: A Systematic Review 2011 to 2020

Abstract

Khitam ALSAQER

Background: Most of the existing studies that investigated the self-care of hypertension focused specifically on medication adherence. However, hypertension self-care is a comprehensive concept that includes multiple dimensions. Last year, there was no review carried out assessing the new instruments for hypertension self-care which captured almost all the hypertension selfcare domains. Objective: This systematic review aimed to (1) identify the existing multiple-dimension hypertension self-care assessment scales from 2011 to 2020, (2) describe their characteristics, (3) and evaluate their psychometric and practical considerations. Methods: Database of PubMed, Web of Science, and EBSCO-host were used to identify all studies published between 2011 and 2020. Search limited to full-text, clinical and randomized trial articles, English language, and using terms (self-care AND hypertension). Scales were evaluated for their psychometric and practical considerations using an evaluation criterion for assessing the quality of measures. Results: The search resulted in 29 articles, and they identified five scales; H-SCALE, SCHI, Hypertension self-care questionnaire, HTN-SCP, and HSMBQ. HTN-SCP and HSCALE were the most used scales (11 times). The reliability was tested in different approaches. Overall, internal consistency was well reported with Cronbach ranging from 0.70 to 0.95. At least one type of validity measure was reported for each scale. The scales included multiple-dimensions of all critical domains and all of them were statistically significant (p< 0.05). The SC-HI and HTN-SCP scales were theoretically based on a theory. Conclusion: Although the identified scales well captured all critical domains of HTN self-care, there was a poor understanding of the process underlying the self-care of hypertensive patients. The HTN-SCP scale seems to be the highest psychometric and practical consideration quality of existing HTN self-care measures. Key words: Hypertension, Self-Care, measures, H-SCALE, SC-HI, HTN-SCP, HSMBQ.