Possibilities to raise public awareness on primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases

Abstract

Introduction. Despite the contribution of medical advances in improving the citizens’ health status, mortality from cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remains at a high level. In most cases patients seek medical assistance after the disease manifestation, which explains the need to develop and implement effective methods to promote a healthy lifestyle as a primary prevention of CVD. The effectiveness of preventive measures for cardiovascular diseases has been known long ago, and their significance is not in doubt, however, the adherence to preventive therapy in society is extremely low.Aim. To compare the effectiveness of memorization and perception of different ways of presenting the basic principles of primary prevention of CVD among the population of middle age group.Material and Methods. The study enrolled 102 people (63 women and 39 men) aged 45 to 59 years not suffering from CVD. The initial level of knowledge of the basic principles of CVD prevention was determined by a polling method. Further, all respondents were randomly divided into three groups. Depending on the group all participants were offered to get acquainted with prevention information in the form of a lecture, a booklet or a video. After getting acquainted with the information, the respondents were asked questions regarding the content, as well as the perception of the proposed material. Statistical processing was performed using Statistica 10.0 software package.Results. It was esteblished that the middle-aged population has a low level of literacy in relation to prevention of CVDs. Thus, 79 respondents (77.5%) gave wrong answers to the most of the questions. After the information was presented, all participants, depending on the group, were offered to review the information in the form of a lecture, a booklet or a video. The most effective form of information delivery among this group of population was booklets, after getting acquainted with which 97% of respondents answered the questions «correctly». Information presented in the format of a video was assimilated a little worse – 90% of correct answers. Only 79% of correct answers were given by respondents who listened to a lecture without visual support, which indicates that this form of presentation of information is not effective enough. When assessing perception of information, the group of respondents who received booklets and watched a video scored 23.5 and 23.2 points, respectively, out of a 25 possible. While the group that listened to the lecture scored only 20 points out of a 25 possible.Conclusion. The study showed that the middle-aged population has a low level of medical literacy and needs educational information on primary prevention. Booklets were the most effective form of delivering this information to this population group. Information in the form of videos was slightly inferior to booklets, but was also readily perceived by the population and demonstrated a high percentage of knowledge acquisition. The worst results were shown by the lectures without visual support.