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Knowledge And Perception Of Hypertension And It’s Management Among Clients/patients
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Risk factors are defined by Lothar, Gottfried and Heide (2011) as
individual characteristics which affect the person’s chances of
developing a particular disease or group of diseases within a defined
future time period. According to Lucas and Gilles (2003), risk factor is
anything that has been identified as increasing an individual’s chances
of getting a disease or developing a condition. They will be considered
to be at risk of developing hypertension, those with habits or
characteristics which increase the likelihood of developing
hypertension. Risk factors in this study, refers to the characteristics,
conditions or behaviors such as excess salt intake and smoking which
increase the probability of hypertension to occur. When risk factors are
related to hypertension, they are known as risk factors of
hypertension. Risk factors of hypertension are of two types: those ones
that can be changed and those that cannot be changed. The risk factors
that can be changed are obesity, excess salt intake, smoking,
environmental stress, oral contraceptives, sedentary lifestyle, elevated
levels of plasma lipids and unregulated secretion of aldosterone. Risk
factors that cannot be changed are genetic predisposition, age and
gender. Adults should have adequate knowledge of the risk factors to be
able to prevent hypertension.
Preventive measures are interventions
directed to avert the emergence of specific disease, reducing their
incidence and prevalence in population. Starfield, Hyde, and Gervas
(2007) defined preventive measures as all measures that limit the
progression of a disease at any stage of its course. In this study,
preventive measures is referred to as all the activities whose primary
purpose is to promote, restore and maintain health, and those practices
which are directed towards preventing hypertension among adults. There
are two types of preventive measures; primary and secondary. Primary
prevention is the intervention that averts the occurrence of a disease
or actions taken prior to the onset of disease which removes the
possibility that a disease will occur. It signifies intervention in the
pre-pathogenesis phase of a disease or health problem. It may be
accomplished by measures designed to promote general health and
well-being, and quality of life of adults (health promotion) or by
specific protective measures (specific protection). Secondary prevention
is action which slows the progression of a disease at its incipient
stage and prevents complication. Salama (2011) opined that the specific
intervention in secondary prevention is early detection of hypertension
which involves screening test. It attempts to arrest the disease
process, restore health by seeking out unrecognized disease and treating
it before irreversible pathological changes take place especially among
adults.
Adulthood is the longest period of a man’s life. Hornby
(2001) defined an adult as a person who has grown to full size or
strength, intellectually and emotionally mature, and legally a person
old enough to vote or marry. Ebiringa and Nwagbo (1997) defined an adult
as someone who has reached the age of maturity, who covers his
nakedness, who lives on his own, who can answer avillage call and who is
taxable. They went further to state that an adult is someone who has
developed a sense of perspective, more balanced in thinking, and is
responsible for his own actions and that of others. Samuel (2006)
defined adulthood as the period whereby an individual has acquired all
the adolescent developmental tasks, reached accepted age bracket and is
responsible for his actions without parental or social restrictions.
Samuel (2006) also categorized adults into three stages; young adulthood
(21- 40), middle adulthood (41-65) and older adulthood (65 years and
above). Young adulthood which commences at around 21 to 40 years is the
period when full physical fitness is generally experienced. It is a
stage of critical transition. Adults in this age group are filled with
vitality and enthusiasm. Middle adults falls within the ages of 41 to 65
years which is a period of pleasant plateau (Ejifugha, 2003). Adults
within this group are at a stage of physical and psychological
development. Adults in this group tend to eat too much and may fail to
take regular exercise. Many are overweight and actually obese.
Psychological stress causes adults in this group to smoke, drink and
abuse drugs. Older adults are between the ages of 65 years and above.
The factors in ageing set in to influence the individual gradually which
may cause cardiovascular diseases like hypertension. In this study, an
adult is referred to as an individual who has reached the age of
maturity and falls within the age bracket of thirty five years and
above.
There are many variables that may impinge on knowledge of
hypertension. Literature shows that studies on knowledge of hypertension
examined socio-demographic factors of age, race, level of education,
parity, gender, income, location, occupation and marital status (Hamdan,
Saeed, Kutbi, Choudhry&Nooh, 2010). However the present study is
concerned with demographic factors of age, gender, location, and level
of education.
Age has been identified as a strong factor that that
can limit the ability of adults to acquire adequate knowledge of
hypertension. Age determines growth, development, maturity and death.
Age brings about maturity and maturity puts one in a position to
rationalize, concretize, accept or reject concept, information, habit,
attitude and practice (Ejifugha, 2003). It is believed that the more one
add years to life, the more knowledge he acquires and the more exposed
to situations that can cause health problems including hypertension.
Adults because of their exposure and experience must have come to
understand the concept of hypertension, signs and symptoms, risk factors
and preventive measures of hypertension and because of lack of exposure
or experience may not adequately acquire the knowledge of diseases
(Bagunyoke, 2003) such as hypertension.
Gender has influence on
knowledge of hypertension. Akinkugbe (2003) observed that women have
more hypertension than men. However, after menopause, the incidence of
hypertension due to arteriosclerosis in women rapidly increases than in
men and even become higher in old age. From adolescence through 54
years, men have a much greater risk of developing hypertension compared
with women of the same age.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]Hypertension is an important public health challenge at Auchi Nigeria. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological survey was to determine hypertensive patients’ knowledge, perceptions, attitudes and life-style practices so as to optimize their health and treatment needs. We examined a cohort of 108 randomly selected hypertensive by means of a self-structured questionnaire and a detailed interview. Analysis was by statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and chi- square was use ... Continue reading---
