Response to “Self-Care Behavior Based on Knowledge of Patients with Hypertension” [Letter]

Dear editor

We have carefully studied the article entitled “Self-Care Behavior Based on Knowledge of Patients with Hypertension”, an important topic in hypertension care. The researchers reported that the better the knowledge, the better the self-care by hypertensive patients, but this correlation was not significant (p=0.009).¹ We strongly suspect that this is because the researchers used categorical data on these two variables, meaning that the data analysis had to be carried out using non-parametric statistics, which have many weaknesses.

In this study, the researchers measured the two variables using questionnaires adapted from Eugene and Bourne² for knowledge and Han et al³ for self-care. Both sets of questionnaires are multi-item instruments, so that researchers can take the total score, mean, or percentage as numerical data, which have a higher level of accuracy. Thus, the hypothesis could be tested again using parametric statistical methods, such as the Pearson correlation test or a simple linear regression test. We strongly predict that the p value will show significant results after reanalysis.

Furthermore, we request that the Editor give the researchers the opportunity to respond to this letter with the results of their new analysis, as the new findings are expected to be useful for the related and interested community.