Cardiovascular disease awareness program on risk factors for cardiovascular disease among adolescents in selected schools, in New Delhi

Abstract

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the main cause of mortality worldwide. The main risk factors include tobacco chewing/smoking, higher blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, obesity, excessive alcohol use, age, sex, and heredity. Although CVDs commonly develop in middle age or later, risk factors are highly impacted by childhood practices that are continued into maturity. Knowledge gaps on CVD and its risk factors are major obstacles to effective prevention and treatment. Hence, CVD awareness program was organized in order to educate adolescents about CVD and its risk factors. Objective: The objectives of study were to identify students’ knowledge before and after implementation of educational session, to study the demographic risk factors among students, to evaluate the effectiveness of CVD awareness program on student’s knowledge & to find out the association between post intervention student’s knowledge with selected variables. Materials and Methods: Pre-experimental research design was used at Nalanda Modern Public School, and Sarvodaya Vidyalaya Mukherjee Nagar, New Delhi. Purposive sampling technique was used to select sample of 300 adolescents studying in 8th, 9th, and 10th standards. Result: The study findings indicate majority of adolescents (56%) have average knowledge about CVD and its risk factors in pretest. Post-test showed a marked improvement with 72.7% of adolescents having good knowledge as compared to 24% in pre-test indicating improvement in knowledge with the program. There was significant difference between pretest and post-test knowledge scores of the adolescents regarding CVD and its risk factors (t=21.045, p=0.05). Conclusion: From the findings, it can be concluded that CVD awareness program was effective in improving adolescents’ knowledge. Keywords: Cardiovascular disease, Adolescents, CVD risk factors, Adolescent’s knowledge, CVD awareness program.