Knowledge, Attitude and Lifestyle Practices Pertaining to Hypertension among the People of Ahoe-Ho

Abstract

Background: Hypertension has been on high prevalence recently in developing countries of which Ghana is of no exception. Over the period, hypertension education has mostly been geared towards people who already have been diagnosed of the condition leaving most of the general population in the dark. This untargeted portion of the population tend to predispose themselves to the condition as they ignorantly involved themselves in high-risk activities. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive research design was adopted to conduct the study. Open and close ended, self-administered questionnaires were used to collect information on the social demographics, knowledge, attitudes and lifestyle on hypertension among respondents. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to analyze the data. Results were presented in tables, bar graphs and pie chart. Results: The study showed that less than half (49.3%) of the respondents correctly explained that hypertension means increased force of blood through the blood vessels and 90.8% agreed that taking of antihypertensive medications can control hypertension. Also, the study showed that the majority of respondents (92.2%) identified exercising as an important factor in controlling hypertension and 32.7% responded yes to using herbal preparations to control their hypertension. Conclusion: The findings of the study provides information on knowledge, attitudes and lifestyle practices pertaining to hypertension among the people of Ahoe. Minority of the respondents had good knowledge on what hypertension was and very few of them were hypertensive.