Investigating The Current Status Of The Knowledge, Attitudes And Practice Of Patients With Cerebral Infarction And Analyzing The Related Factors

Objective:To investigate the current status of the knowledge, attitudes and practice of patients with cerebral infarction and analyze the related risk factors, then to provide a scientific basis for strategies and methods in developing productive health education and health-promoting activities. Methods:The convenience sampling was employed to define the object of study. A self-developed questionnaire about the knowledge, attitudes and practice of cerebral infarction was distributed to 150 patients who were selected in this study from September to December, 2009, in the Central Hospital in Wanbailin District, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province. The results were analyzed statistically by chi square test and non-conditional logistic regression analysis. Results:1. The gross scores of the knowledge about hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and diabetes mellitus in the 150 patients were respectively 15.33±8.06,19.83±11.25, and 18.4±10.54. Non-conditional multiple logistic regression analysis identified level of education (P<0.05), length of the course (P<0.05) as significant factors influencing the level of knowledge. The higher the education levels were, and the longer the length of course was, the better the level of knowledge was.2. The gross scores of attitudes in the 150 patients towards hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes mellitus were respectively 2.89±1.71,2.65±1.43 and 2.93±1.67. the results showed that the 150 patients paid most attention to diabetes mellitus, less attention to hyperlipidemia, and the least to hypertension. Multiple logistic regression analysis identified level of education (P<0.01) as significant factor influencing their attitudes. The higher the education levels were, the better the attitudes were. Additionally, length of the course was a significant factor (P<0.05) influencing attitudes to hypertension. The longer the course was, the better the attitude to the treatment of hypertension was.3. The gross scores of treatment practices in the 150 patients of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes mellitus were respectively 7.47±4.22,8.29±4.67 and 7.53±4.12. Multiple logistic regression analysis identified level of education (P<0.01), length of the course (P<0.01) as significant positive factors influencing the patients'practices.4. The result of chi-square test showed that gender, age, source of medical expenses and occupation of the patients also had a positive influence on their knowledge, attitudes and practices.5. The knowledge, attitudes and practice of patients with cerebral infarction were closely related to each other.Conclusion:1. Patients with cerebral infarction lack the knowledge of the disease generally, and have some wrong opinions. So health education should be enhanced and more attention should be paid to the knowledge of the effectiveness and the feasibility.2. Generally speaking, the patients'attitude toward cerebral infarction is positive. The overwhelming majority of the patients are willing to accept the health education. So the health education could be executed by many kinds of forms such as the network and the lectures.3. Practices of the patients leave much to be desired. According to right answer rate, practices level from upper to lower in turn was diet practices, exercise practices, and monitoring practices. Monitoring practices were too far from satisfactory. Health education should be strengthened vigorously, to promote people's awareness of the related risk factors to cerebral infarction, to advocate scientific life style and the diet habit, and to promote the transition from health knowledge to the healthy behavior, thus reduce the risk of contracting cerebral infarction.4. The knowledge, attitudes and practice of patients with cerebral infarction were closely related to each other. On the whole, the patients with low level of education and/or short course of the disease are weaker in their knowledge, attitudes and practices, which indicate that educators should pay more attention to these two groups of people.