Investigation experiences of hypertensive patients

Background: Hypertension is one of the major chronic disorders. Hypertensive patients have various disease-related experiences, based on personal and social characteristics, life style and other effective factors. Nurses face different situations during their activities process and presentation of these experiences obtained during working with patients can help them to improve the clinical activities. The purpose of this study was to determine the experiences of hypertensive patients. Methods: This was a qualitative phenomenological survey. The study population was hypertensive patients referred to hospitals of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. The sampling method was purposeful. The data collected by indepth interviews and data analysis was done by Collaizi's seven-staged method. Results: The findings of the interviews classified in 133 codes and the thematic analysis revealed three major clusters as: 1. clinical experiences about the disease; 2. social experiences of the disease; and 3. mental-psychological experiences. Conclusion: Hypertensive patients had mostly experienced chronic situations and treatment process as well as their surrounding problems such as diet and life style. Life style is an important criterion for our physical health and it should be changed so that hypertensive patients feet relatively healthy, fine and peaceful in the rest of their life. Patient indicated beliefs about their disease and experienced its psychological signs.