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Sociocultural perceptions of physical activity and dietary habits for hypertension control: voices from adults in a rural sub-district of South Africa

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posted on 2025-04-14, 13:13 authored by Kganetso Sekome, Francesc Xavier Gómez-Olivé, Lauren SherarLauren Sherar, Dale EsligerDale Esliger, Hellen Myezwa

Background: Over half of adults from rural South Africa are hypertensive. Apart from pharmaceutical treatment, lifestyle changes such as increasing physical activity and reducing dietary salt have been strongly advocated for the control of hypertension. However, the control rates of hypertension for adults in rural South Africa are low. In this paper we explore whether this is due to the recommended lifestyle intervention not aligning with the individual’s socio-cultural determinants of behaviour change.

Aim: To explore the social and cultural beliefs, perceptions and practices regarding physical activity and diet as a hypertension control intervention on hypertensive adults living in a rural sub-district in South Africa.

Methods: Nine focus group discussions were conducted with hypertensive adults aged 40 years and above from Bushbuckridge sub-district in Mpumalanga Province of South Africa using a semi-structured interview guide. Each session began with introductions of the discussion theme followed by a short discussion on what the participants know about hypertension and the normal blood pressure readings. Physical activity and dietary habits were then introduced as the main subject of discussion. Probing questions were used to get more insight on a specific topic. A thematic analysis approach was used to generate codes, categories, and themes. A manual approach to data analysis was chosen and data obtained through transcripts were analysed inductively.

Findings: Participants had a lack of knowledge about blood pressure normal values. Perceived causes of hypertension were alluded to psychosocial factors such as family and emotional-related issues. Physical activity practices were influenced by family and community members’ attitudes and gender roles. Factors which influenced dietary practices mainly involved affordability and availability of food. To control their hypertension, participants recommend eating certain foods, emotional control, taking medication, exercising, praying, correct food preparation, and performing house chores.

Conclusion: Lifestyle interventions to control hypertension for adults in a rural South African setting using physical activity promotion and dietary control must consider the beliefs related to hypertension control of this population.

Funding

Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA)

Carnegie Corporation of New York (Grant No. G-19-57145)

Sida (Grant No: 54100113)

Wellcome Trust [reference no.107768/Z/15/Z]

UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, with support from the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science in Africa (DELTAS Africa) programme

National Research Foundation (NRF) Thuthuka (Grant No: 129864)

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

BMC Public Health

Volume

24

Issue

1

Publisher

BMC

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

©The Author(s)

Publisher statement

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Acceptance date

2024-07-01

Publication date

2024-08-13

Copyright date

2024

ISSN

1471-2458

eISSN

1471-2458

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Dale Esliger. Deposit date: 31 October 2024

Article number

2194

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