Implementation and success of nurse telephone counseling in linguistically isolated Korean American patients with high blood pressure

Objective: Nurse telephone counseling can improve the management of chronic conditions, but the effectiveness of this approach in underserved populations is unclear. This study evaluated the use of bilingual nurse-delivered telephone counseling in Korean Americans (KAs) participating in a community-based intervention trial to improve management of hypertension. Methods: KAs were randomized to receive 12 months of hypertension-related telephone counseling that was more intensive (bi-weekly) or less intensive (monthly). Counseling logs were kept for 360 KAs who completed the pre- and post-intervention evaluations. Results: The overall success rate for the intervention was 80.3%. The level of success was significantly influenced by the dose of counseling, employment status, and years of US residence. Over the 12-month counseling period, both groups showed improvement with regard to medication-taking, alcohol consumption, and exercise but not smoking, with no significant group differences. Conclusion: Bilingual telephone counseling could reach monolingual KAs and improve their hypertension management behavior. Practice implications: Bilingual nurse telephone counseling may have wide applicability, serving as an effective means of disseminating evidence-based chronic disease management guidelines to a linguistically isolated community with limited health resources and information.