Awareness and influencing factors of hypertension-related knowledge among community hypertensive patients

Objective To examine the awareness of hypertension-related knowledge and its influencing factors among hypertension patients in communities of Shanghai city and to provide references for the prevention and control of hypertension in communities.Methods Totally 791 newly registered primary hypertension patients were recruited from three communities in Shanghai city between January 2014 and June 2016.Then a questionnaire survey was conducted among the patients to collect information on demographics,medication,and awareness of hypertension prevention and control knowledge.Unconditional logistic regression was adopted to analyze factors associated with the awareness of hypertension-related knowledge.Results Among the 772 participants with eligible information,only 37.56% reported adequate awareness of hypertension-related knowledge(correctly answering 10 or more of 12 relevant questions).Of the participants,only 55.8% and 34.8% knew diagnostic criteria of hypertension and recommended daily salt consumption.The results of multivariate analyses showed that the participants ensured by medical insurance for urban workers (odds ratio OR=1.950),with high education level (OR=4.254),and with an annual household income of more than 100 000 RMB yuan (OR=4.254)were more likely to have a higher awareness of hypertension-related knowledge.Conclusion The awareness rate of hypertension-related knowledge is not high among community hypertension patients and the patients with new rural cooperative medical insurance,primary education level,and low annual income have poor hypertension-related knowledge.Community medical workers should conduct education specific for various populations among hypertension patients to help them acquire basic knowledge about self management of hypertension.