Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Stroke in Multicultural Communities: Should the Indonesian Government Reconsider Stroke Awareness Campaigns?

Introduction: A stroke awareness campaign is crucial for primary stroke prevention. Therefore, it is important to evaluate people’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding stroke awareness to assess the effectiveness of the campaign that has been carried out so far. This study aims to identify people’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding stroke and analyze the influence of demographic factors on their knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Methods: This cross-sectional study involving 512 randomly selected adults was conducted in the east and west of Java Island Indonesia in June – August 2022. A questionnaire containing 31 items of knowledge, ten items of attitudes, and 10 items of practices was used as an instrument. Demographic data obtained includes age, gender, place of residence, education, occupation, monthly income, and ethnicity. The collected data were analyzed using ANOVA. Results: Fifty-one percent of respondents had poor knowledge, 67% had poor attitudes, and 48% had poor practices regarding stroke awareness. However, gender and occupation do not affect their knowledge, attitudes, and practices, while education level affects knowledge and attitudes, place of residence only affects knowledge, age only affects attitudes, and ethnicity affects all knowledge, attitudes, and practices scores. Conclusion: Because ethnicity is the only factor that can affect all domains (knowledge, attitudes, and practices), the Indonesian government must immediately review the stroke awareness campaign strategy using an ethnic/cultural approach. Given that Indonesia has one of the world’s highest levels of cultural diversity, it is expected to be right on target.