Population awareness of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors in Buea, Cameroon

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Author(s)
Aminde, Leopold Ndemnge
Takah, Noah
Ngwasiri, Calypse
Noubiap, Jean Jacques
Tindong, Maxime
Dzudie, Anastase
Veerman, J Lennert
Year published
2017
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Background: Adequate awareness of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and their risk factors may help reduce the
population’s exposure to modifiable risk factors and thereby contribute to prevention and control strategies. There
is limited data on knowledge among the general population in sub-Saharan Africa regarding CVD and risk factors.
We aimed to assess the population awareness (and associated factors) of CVD types and risk factors in Buea,
Cameroon.
Methods: This was a community-based cross-sectional study conducted in 2016 among randomly selected adults
(>18 years). Data on socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge about ...
View more >Background: Adequate awareness of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and their risk factors may help reduce the population’s exposure to modifiable risk factors and thereby contribute to prevention and control strategies. There is limited data on knowledge among the general population in sub-Saharan Africa regarding CVD and risk factors. We aimed to assess the population awareness (and associated factors) of CVD types and risk factors in Buea, Cameroon. Methods: This was a community-based cross-sectional study conducted in 2016 among randomly selected adults (>18 years). Data on socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge about CVD types, their risk factors and warning signs for CVD events (stroke and heart attack) were acquired using a self-administered questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate factors associated with moderate-to-good knowledge. Results: Of the 1162 participants (61.7% women, mean age 32 years), 52.5% had overall poor knowledge (mean score 12.1 on total of 25) on CVD with only about a quarter correctly identifying types of CVD. Overall, 36, 63 and 45% were unaware of CVD risk factors, warning signs of heart attack and stroke respectively. In multivariable analysis; high level of education (aOR = 2.26 (1.69–3.02), p < 0.0001), high monthly income (aOR = 1.64 (1.07–2.51), p = 0.023), having a family history of CVD (aOR = 1.59 (1.21–2.09), p = 0.001) and being a former smoker (aOR = 1. 11 (1.02–1.95), p = 0.043) were associated with moderate-to-good knowledge. Conclusions: There exists a significant gap in population awareness about CVDs in Cameroon and this is similar to previous reports. Cost-effective community health education interventions taking into account socioeconomic status may be beneficial in this setting.
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View more >Background: Adequate awareness of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and their risk factors may help reduce the population’s exposure to modifiable risk factors and thereby contribute to prevention and control strategies. There is limited data on knowledge among the general population in sub-Saharan Africa regarding CVD and risk factors. We aimed to assess the population awareness (and associated factors) of CVD types and risk factors in Buea, Cameroon. Methods: This was a community-based cross-sectional study conducted in 2016 among randomly selected adults (>18 years). Data on socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge about CVD types, their risk factors and warning signs for CVD events (stroke and heart attack) were acquired using a self-administered questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate factors associated with moderate-to-good knowledge. Results: Of the 1162 participants (61.7% women, mean age 32 years), 52.5% had overall poor knowledge (mean score 12.1 on total of 25) on CVD with only about a quarter correctly identifying types of CVD. Overall, 36, 63 and 45% were unaware of CVD risk factors, warning signs of heart attack and stroke respectively. In multivariable analysis; high level of education (aOR = 2.26 (1.69–3.02), p < 0.0001), high monthly income (aOR = 1.64 (1.07–2.51), p = 0.023), having a family history of CVD (aOR = 1.59 (1.21–2.09), p = 0.001) and being a former smoker (aOR = 1. 11 (1.02–1.95), p = 0.043) were associated with moderate-to-good knowledge. Conclusions: There exists a significant gap in population awareness about CVDs in Cameroon and this is similar to previous reports. Cost-effective community health education interventions taking into account socioeconomic status may be beneficial in this setting.
View less >
Journal Title
BMC Public Health
Volume
17
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Note
Page numbers are not for citation purposes. Instead, this article has the unique article number of 545.
Subject
Health services and systems
Public health
Health promotion