KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PERCEPTION WITH REGARDS TO PREVENTION OF HYPERTENSION AMONG BANKERS IN MUSHIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, LAGOS, NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
Hypertension is a major public health problem which is the third leading risk factor contributing to mortality and morbidity rate in the world. Hypertension is said to be responsible for 45% of deaths due to heart diseases and 51% of death due to stroke. In Nigeria hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease reported with death rate of 13.62% per 100,000 population as at 2014. The objective of this study was to assess Banker’s knowledge, attitude and perception on sedentary lifestyle as a predisposing factor to hypertension together with availability of workplace health promotion towards combating hypertension susceptibly among bankers.
The research was a cross-sectional survey, which was carried out among 131 staff of 10 different banks in Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection, in which the knowledge, attitude, perception, practice of sedentary lifestyle and hypertension and also workplace health promotion was measured. Data collected were analyzed using statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 21 with levels of significance set at 0.05.
The mean age of respondents was 30.09 ± 7.36 ranging between the age of 19 -45years, 64 (48.9%) were males while 67(51.1%) were female bankers. Most of the respondents had below average level of knowledge (46%) on what constitute sedentary lifestyle and hypertension, where more than half of the respondent scored above average on their attitude towards sedentary lifestyle (56%), the respondent perceived seriousness of hypertension was above average (56.83%), where the perceived susceptibility to hypertension was below average (49.08%) and the study also revealed that the respondents perceived benefits was good with percentage above average(64%), the study revealed that respondents’ practice of physical activity was above average (52.53%). Analysis also showed that there was no stipulated workplace health promotion across the selected banks (37.2%). It was gathered that respondents knowledge of sedentary lifestyle was significantly related to their practice of it (R2 = 0.121; F = 17.697; P < 0.05), Test result showed that there was a significant association between availability of workplace health promotion and the practice of sedentary lifestyle among respondents (F = 6.542, R Square = 0.048; P < 0.05).
The study concluded that knowledge of bankers on sedentary lifestyle as a risk factor to hypertension was below average indicating that bankers do not have enough knowledge linking sedentary lifestyle to hypertension and there are no workplace health promotion and this is indicating that a reduction in sedentary lifestyle among bankers calls for an establishment of workplace health promotion.
Keywords: Hypertension, Sedentary lifestyle, physical activity, bankers, knowledge of bankers