Associations of Lifestyle Intervention Effect with Blood Pressure and Physical Activity among Community-Dwelling Older Americans with Hypertension in Southern California

Abstract

A healthy lifestyle and regular physical activity are highly recommended for older adults. However, there has been limited research into testing lifestyle intervention effects on physical activity in older adults with hypertension. The purpose of this study was to assess the association of lifestyle intervention effects with physical activity and blood pressure in older adults with hypertension, accounting for social support and perceived stress as control variables. This study performed a secondary analysis of a two-arm randomized controlled trial. A total of 196 participants were randomly assigned to a six-month lifestyle intervention group or a control group. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that lifestyle intervention effects were not significantly associated with improvements in physical activity and blood pressure, but the final regression models were statistically significant (all p < 0.001). The result revealed that only physical activity frequency at baseline was significantly related to improvement in physical activity. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) at baseline and monthly income were significantly associated with change in SBP, while age and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) at baseline were significantly related to change in DBP. The findings provide empirical evidence for developing and optimizing lifestyle interventions for future research and clinical practice in this population.