Abstract:

Introduction: Self-care is an important component to control blood pressure in people with hypertension. Low self-care ability will have an impact on increasing the risk of complications. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of hypertensive patients in self-care. Methods: The study used a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach. Nine hypertensive patients were taken by purposive sampling technique. The data collection was using semi-structured interviews. Thematically analyzed data based on transcribed interview data. Results: The results of the study obtained six themes related to self-care, namely perceptions of the causes of recurrence, emotional responses, social support, accessibility of health-care services, self-care behavior and barriers of self-care. Conclusions: Self-care in hypertensive patients is influenced by the availability of social support from both family and health workers as well as the affordability of health-care services. The implication of this study is the need to improve a good support system, especially from nurses to be able to minimize the barriers felt by patients so as to improve self-care abilities

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