Date of Conferral

3-7-2024

Date of Award

March 2024

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Health Services

Advisor

Nicoletta Alexander

Abstract

Hypertension is referred to as the silent killer and has been for decades. African Americans have been affected disproportionately compared to Whites, leading to a significant medical and financial burden. The literature has demonstrated that even though African Americans have a similar or better awareness of hypertension, they are more likely to have poorer treatment outcomes and have their hypertension less controlled. In this study, the health belief model and the ecological social model were used as the guiding framework to understand this phenomenon. In this qualitative study, semistructured interviews were used to explore and understand the perception of adherence to prescribed medical regimens of African American males with early-onset hypertension. Purposeful and convenient sampling was employed to recruit 14 study participants. The interpretative phenomenological analysis method, template analysis, and coding of emerging thematic categories were employed. The findings of this study demonstrated how cultural beliefs, perceptions, and distrust in the healthcare system, including healthcare providers and Western medications, impacted hypertension medication adherence. The results have implications for effecting positive social change through interventions focusing on the development of self-efficacy and trust facilitated by healthcare providers. These implications as highlighted in the study are the impact of socioeconomic status on healthcare access, poor trust in healthcare providers, low health literacy, cultural diversity awareness, African American males' perception of hypertension, and the need for a blame-free environment for open discussions about medication adherence.

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