ABSTRACT
Background:
To achieve the ultimate goal of controlling hypertension and improving the quality of life, it is important to fully understand the level of patient’s awareness, perception and attitude towards hypertension.
Objective:
This study is aimed to determine the level of patient’s awareness and perception of hypertension including its severity, susceptibility as well as complication that hypertension can result to.
Method
A descriptive cross-sectional community based study was conducted between February and May 2020. A self-reported structured questionnaire was administered to collect data relating to lifestyle, perception of hypertension. Data were entered into Microsoft Excel sheet and were analyzed using SPSS analytical package (version 20) for descriptive and inferential statistics.
Result:
Of the 100 respondents enrolled into the study, 41 (41%) of the total participants disagree that their blood condition is serious and were not worried about their blood pressure condition, Out of the total participants, 47 (47%) strongly agreed that having high blood pressure can result to stroke, 51 (51.0%) strongly agrees that having high blood pressure can result to developing heart problem, 49 (49%) strongly agrees that having high blood pressure can lead to developing kidney problem, 64% of the participant agreed that getting hypertension is dangerous, 68% agreed that getting hypertension could lead to being permanently disabled, the high awareness and perception level of the participant was due to the fact that the research was conducted in an urban area where the literacy rate is also higher, formal education is high and more than half of the participants (60%) were educated beyond basic education and 40% had basic education.
Conclusion:
Hypertensive patients visiting community pharmacy had high level of awareness and perception regarding hypertension including its severity, susceptibility as well as its complication, this was associated with their tertiary educational background.
KEY: hypertension, Awareness and Perception
