The Prevalence of Internet Use as a Source of Information Among Patients With Hypertension

Background and objective The incidence of hypertension is growing at an alarming rate globally. In the United States, nearly half of the adult population suffers from hypertension, a disease potentially associated with long-term dire consequences and comorbidities. While Internet access has proliferated, and free Internet-based education resources for healthy lifestyles have exponentially increased over the past two decades, little is known about whether Internet-based information can be or is used as a self-learning tool for hypertension management in a community setting. With almost no published data, if and to what degree Internet-based, self-directed learning tools are used for hypertension management needs to be assessed. In light of this, we aimed to evaluate the prevalence of Internet use as a source of information in patients with known diagnoses of hypertension who presented to our Internal Medicine clinic at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso. Materials and methods We conducted a single-center, cohort-based observational study at our teaching hospital's internal medicine clinic. A survey questionnaire was distributed to all adults aged more than 18 years with a known diagnosis of hypertension. Consent for participation was obtained from all participants. Of the total studied population, 93.6% (190/203) were of Hispanic descent. Moreover, 67.5% (137/203) identified as female. Of note, 22.7% (46/203) reported using the Internet to learn about hypertension. Internet users were younger, with a mean age of 61.4 years compared to 68.7 (p=0.02) years for non-Internet users, attended institutions of a higher grade of education, and mostly received information regarding hypertension from their families (91.3% vs 2.5%, p