Message framing utilization in hypertension research with African American women

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of message framing on hypertension, medication adherence, diet, and hypertension self-care activities. Message framing has seen increasing exposure in the literature and seems to be accepted well by various populations. Message framing is a new way to disseminate information to the public. The study will employ a quasi-experimental design and convenience sampling method. Data will be collected from 100 African American women from the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, CA and other residents of other Bay Area cities, due to snowball sampling and word of mouth. Pre and post test measures will be administered after a month of women receiving text messages via their cell phones with either a gain or loss framed message. The hypothesis is that African American women will adhere better to loss-framed messages due to the research that has proven so for minority populations. A power analysis was completed to determine exactly how many individuals were needed to participate in the study. The instruments used to collect data were a Demographic form, the Morisky-Adherence Scale, Hypertension Scale for Self Care Activities (H-SCALE), Medficts, and current hypertension readings per self-report. T-tests will be used to determine if significant differences exist between the two groups receiving gain-framed or loss-framed messages on blood pressure readings, medication adherence, diet, and hypertension self-care activities. The results of this study will help provide knowledge on the hypertension status of African American women to the general public.