Abstract:
This quasi-experimental research was conducted to examine the effect of musical prayers on stress and blood pressure in persons with hypertension. The participants were 60 patients diagnosed with essential hypertension who attended a health center in Chainat province. The participants were recruited from one of two randomly selected health centers, one serving as the control group and one as the experimental group with thirty patients in each group. The control group at Pho-ngam Health Center received routine nursing care and the experimental group at Baan Wat Kampaeng Health Center continuously listened to musical prayer for at least for 30 minutes each for 4 weeks. Data collection was conducted twice, before and immediately after the intervention, over a four week period using demographic questionnaires, a perceived stress scale, and blood pressure recording. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, and the researcher compared the means (before and after treatment) of perceived stress score and blood pressure within the experimental group using a paired t-test and Wilcoxon signed-ranks test as well as compared the experimental group and the control group using independent t-test and ANCOVA. The results revealed that after listening to musical prayer, the experimental group had significantly lower average perceived stress scores, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure than before the intervention (p < .001, p < .001, p < .05, respectively). The experimental group also had lower average perceived stress scores and systolic blood pressure than the control group (p < .05), but diastolic blood pressure was the same. Therefore, musical prayer should be applied to persons with hypertension in order to reduce stress and lower blood pressure.