title: Health behaviour advice from health professionals to Canadian adults with hypertension: results from a national survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Health professionals play an important role in providing health information to patients. The objectives of this study were to examine the type of advice that Canadians with hypertension recall receiving from health professionals to manage their condition, and to assess if there is an association between health behaviour advice provided by health professionals and self-reported engagement in health behaviour modification.
  
  
  METHODS
  Respondents of the 2009 Survey on Living with Chronic Diseases in Canada (N = 6142) were asked about sociodemographic characteristics, health care utilization, and health behaviour modification to control hypertension. Association between receipt of advice from health professional and ever engaging, continuing to engage, and not engaging in health behaviour modification was quantified by prevalence rate ratios.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most participants (90.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 89.6-92.2) reported that the health professional most responsible for treating their high blood pressure was their general practitioner. Approximately 9% reported that they had not received or do not recall receiving any advice for blood pressure control. The most commonly reported advice received from a health professional was to participate in physical activity or exercise (70.0%). Respondents who had received advice on health behaviour change to manage their high blood pressure were more likely to report engaging in the behaviour compared with those who did not receive such advice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Many Canadians with hypertension receive health behaviour change advice from their health professionals. Receiving this advice was associated with a greater likelihood of attempting health behaviour change and attempting to sustain that change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Robin L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: Marianne E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Gee
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bancej
authors.forename: Robert P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Nolan
authors.forename: Janusz
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kaczorowski
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Joffres
authors.forename: Asako
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bienek
authors.forename: Femida
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gwadry-Sridhar
authors.forename: Norman R C
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Campbell
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002170:Canada; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000628:therapy*; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055815:Young Adult