Some results of assessing patients’ knowledge about hypertension

Abstract

Background: According to a study conducted in China, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for 71% of the total population deaths, and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are the leading causes of death. It accounts for 44% of NCDs, which is twice higher than the incidence of cancer. As a result, by 2030, the total number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases is expected to exceed 23 million, the main causes of which are hypertension, obesity, type II diabetes and other factors. One of the global targets for non-communicable diseases is to reduce the prevalence of hypertension by 33 percent between 2010 and 2030. Aim: To assess the patient’s knowledge about arterial hypertension. Materials and Methods: A survey general information questionnaire and a general knowledge questionnaire about NCDs were used from the standard STEPS questionnaire to assess population knowledge, attitudes, and practices about noncommunicable diseases. To check the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, 5 therapists were randomly selected and interviewed by the questionnaire, the researcher practiced data collection, and the reliability of the questionnaire was considered to be reliable as the value of Cronbach’s alpha approached one. The researcher conducted an interview with the patient according to the 51 questions of the study in such a way as to allow the participant’s understanding and opinion to be accurately expressed, and when taking the survey, researcher talked with one participant for about 30 minutes and took the survey. Results: The study included 330 patients aged 43-89 years from 7 provinces in Mongolia-China hospitals, of which n=175(53%) were male and n=155(47%) were female. As for the living environment, 188 (57%) live in an apartment, 100 (30%) live in ger a, and 42 (13%) live in a house. Regarding the number of families, 253 (77) have 1-5 families, 77 (23) have 6-10 families, the average age is 66.88+12.26, and the average year of diagnosis is 8.39+6.83 (p=0.000). The knowledge of the participants that hypertension is a cause of other diseases is significant (p=0.72) in all age groups, while the knowledge of the need to measure and how to measure correctly is (0.070). All age groups of participants know that high blood pressure is a cause of other diseases, but they do not regularly monitor and measure blood pressure correctly (072). Conclusion: Most of the participants know that high blood pressure is the basis of other diseases and the use of drugs and active movement are important methods of lowering blood pressure, but they do not know how to measure and control it, which indicates the need for health education.