We are currently recruiting African American men and women who have a history of stroke and have a high blood pressure condition. After recruitment we will gather information about the participants’ needs via three surveys and an interview. Based on the needs assessment data we will develop an intervention/program to help these participants for self management of their post stroke life and their blood pressure condition. We will collect the data via surveys before, midpoint and after completion of our program to examine its feasibility.

Stroke is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity. African American (AA) populations have a higher prevalence of stroke than whites do. The lack of resources leads to substantial physical, social, and psychological burdens and makes self-management more challenging, hence putting these individuals at high risk for secondary chronic conditions. This is especially prominent among undeserved populations including AA living in the black belt of rural Alabama due to the additional factors related to their socio-demographic characteristics. Our pilot project aims develop a need-based community stroke self-management program that would improve the stroke self-management self-efficacy and competencies among African American stroke survivors living in rural Alabama. Our study is a mixed-methods study to collect data related to the needs of these individuals and develop a need-based intervention based on the actual needs/ preferences of our target population. Our specific aims are to assess the needs, access barriers, existing resources for a stroke self-management program; and develop a Community Stroke Self-management Program for improving stroke survivors’ abilities to manage their medication adherence, diet, Physical Activity (PA) requirements, symptoms, and psychological distress to better meet their needs, expectations, and preferences. We also aim to examine the feasibility and acceptability of delivering the CSSP after tailoring our proposed intervention in Aim 2a) among the AA chronic stroke survivors living in rural Alabama. Conducting this study would help to have a sustainable intervention with minimal need of healthcare workers for its online delivery, potentially it would have high scalability and a high economic impact in the long run. Therefore, this project is vital for meeting the unique needs of this undeserved population. Incentives: Sp. aim1: Participants ( stroke survivors and caregivers ) will receive $25 each for the interview. Stroke survivors will fill out the surveys and receive $50 for the compensation of their time. Sp. aim2: Stroke survivors will receive $50 at each time point of data collection i,e. before, midpoint and after the completion of intervention.

For more information contact Dr. Mudasir (Roohi) Andrabi mandrabi@ua.edu 205-348-9875

This project is funded by ForgeAHEAD Center at the UAB