title: Effect of a behavioral intervention of the SALdável program to reduce salt intake among hypertensive women: A randomized controlled pilot study.
abstract: Excessive salt intake has been directly associated with cardiovascular diseases, especially hypertension, and non-cardiovascular diseases. Despite the current recommendations, salt intake remains high, indicating the need to develop theory-based interventions aimed at reducing this intake.
  
  
  
  The purpose of this study was to test the impact of a theory-based intervention - the SALdável Program - to promote the use of less than 4 g of salt/day during cooking.
  
  
  
  This was a two-arm parallel-group randomized study. A total of 92 hypertensive women were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. The intervention was aimed at motivating participants to reduce salt addition by increasing self-efficacy and counteracting the negative influence of habit. Primary outcomes were the behavioral question of salt addition and total salt addition, secondary outcomes were overall salt intake, provided by 24-hour urinary sodium excretion, and psychosocial variables (intention, self-efficacy, and habit).
  
  
  
  At three-month follow-up, the intervention group improved significantly more than the control group regarding salt addition measures (p-values between 0.05 and 0.001) and psychosocial variables (all p-values ⩽0.001). The reduction in 24-hour urinary sodium excretion was not significant.
  
  
  
  The findings showed that this theory-based intervention was effective to motivate and change the behavior of hypertensive women regarding daily salt use in cooking meals. This was accomplished by means of improvements in intention and self-efficacy and reduction of the habit of using more than 4 g of salt/day during cooking.
authors.affiliation: University of Campinas, Brazil mariliacornelio@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Marilia E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Cornélio
authors.affiliation: Laval University, Canada.
authors.forename: Gaston
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Godin
authors.affiliation: University of Campinas, Brazil.
authors.forename: Roberta Cm
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
authors.affiliation: University of Campinas, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rúbia
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: de Freitas Agondi
authors.affiliation: University of Campinas, Brazil.
authors.forename: Neusa Mc
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Alexandre
authors.affiliation: Laval University, Canada.
authors.forename: Maria-Cecilia Bj
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Gallani
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004039:Diet, Sodium-Restricted / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000628:therapy*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010865:Pilot Projects; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D020377:Self Efficacy; D017673:Sodium Chloride, Dietary
chemical_list: D017673:Sodium Chloride, Dietary
keywords: Nursing; habits; hypertension; low-salt diet; randomized controlled trial; self-efficacy