Surya Fazal Hashmi, Muhammad Zubair Jafar, Saima Ayub, Taskeen Zahra, Muhammad Hussain Cheema, Muhammad Ismail Tariq.
Assessment of Public Awareness about Risk Factors for Coronary Heart Disease among General Population of a Union Council of a Major City.
J Cardiovascular Dis Jan ;15(3):63-7.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the level of public awareness about the risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD) and its association with demographic factors among general population of a union council. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross sectional survey of general healthy population of a union council-54 of Gulberg Town, Lahore which included randomly selected 380 individuals. A structured questionnaire was used for assessing the knowledge of public awareness about risk factors of CHD. The variability in the level of knowledge was tested against different socio-demographic factors. Data was collected and analyzed on SPSS 20. Descriptive analysis of variables was performed to assess the distribution of data. Chi-square test/Fisher exact test as appropriate was used to find association between variables. All the tests were performed at 5 % (p< 0.05) level of significance. RESULTS: Results revealed that 36.5% had high level of knowledge. Out of whom the most common awareness was about smoking as risk factor. The frequency of awareness about risk factors was 92%, 81%, 79%, 55%, 48% and 39% in study population identified smoking, fatty food, obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes mellitus respectively. Only 12% were able to recognize physical inactivity as a risk factor. The high level of knowledge was significantly linked with education level more than matric (grade10), non-smoker, performing regular exercise, and having history of diabetes (p-value <0 .05) CONCLUSIONS: There is inadequate level of knowledge about risk factors for CHD in general population. There are knowledge gaps especially regarding association of diabetes mellitus and physical inactivity with CHD. Certain groups particularly having low education, sedentary life style and smokers have low level of awareness about risk factors for CHD. These findings should be used to design public awareness strategies for primary as well as secondary prevention of CHD, thereby decreasing the burden of coronary artery disease.

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