Publication:

Knowledge and perception of hypertension among hypertensive patients attending rural health and training centre, department of community medicine, SRMC & RI

Background Hypertension is the most common treatable risk factor. Efforts have been made to raise the awareness of hypertension. Globally about one billion people have high blood pressure, of those two-thirds are in developing countries. In 2025, an estimated 1.56 billion adults will be living with hypertension. It is called as the “silent killer” because it often has no warning signs or symptoms. There is a lack of clear understanding of the current state of knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions about hypertension among patients and public. Objectives of the study were to assess the knowledge and perception of hypertension among hypertensive patients attending rural health and training centre (RHTC), Vayalanallur, Tamil Nadu.

Methods This is a hospital based, cross-sectional, observational study to assess the awareness of hypertension among hypertensive patients attending NCD clinic during the month of June 2016. After IEC approval, fifty participants who gave written consent were included and the study was conducted using a questionnaire covering knowledge and perception aspects of hypertension in one-to-one interviews.

Results The mean age of participants is 55.6±10.06 with illiterate of 18% and 37.1% unemployed. More than half of the participants were female 64%. Knowledge about the causes of hypertension were 94%, Perception that hypertension can be cured completely was 78% with periodic check-up was 74%, hypertension can be controlled with treatment was 90% and medication to be taken regularly was 100%.

Conclusions Knowledge and perception about hypertension is good and the thrush has to be given regarding the practice on control of blood pressure. Thus, health education programme might help the participants to prevent the complications of hypertension and for good adherence to treatment.