Awareness of Hypertension among Public Secondary School Teachers in a Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Nigeria

Ajewole, ICC and Fasoro, AA and Agbana, RD (2017) Awareness of Hypertension among Public Secondary School Teachers in a Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Nigeria. International Journal of Medical Research and Applications, 1 (2).

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Abstract

Hypertension affects about one billion people and kills about nine million globally. One in every 10 Nigerian adults has high blood p ressure, less than a third of those with high blood pressure are aware of the fact that they have hypertension. A descriptive cross sectional study design was employed. The target population were teachers employed in public secondary schools in a Local Gov ernment Area in Nigeria. A semi - structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Majority of the respondents were aged 40 – 49 years (49.3%), females (68.5%), Christians (86.2%), married (84.7%), Yoruba (98%) and Bachelor’s degree holders (46.3%). Al l the respondents (100%) have heard about hypertension and majority (55.7%) got the information through health campaign. The risk factors of hypertension reported were cigarette smoking (31.5%), alcohol consumption (43.4%), salt intake (59.6%) and lack of exercise (60.6%). About 15.8% were aware they were hypertensive. Eighty three respondents (40.9%) consume alcohol. Adding extra salt to food was common among 7.9%, about one - tenth (9.4%) smoke cigarette and 27.1% have family history of hypertension. The fi ndings of this study show that hearing about is quite different from having a knowledge of a disease condition. There is need to enlighten the population about the risk factors of hypertension.

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