Spouse Similarities in High Blood Pressure Knowledge: Implications for Control of High Blood Pressure

Abstract

This study describes the general knowledge about high blood pressure of husbands and wives using data from all 1,260 white spouse pairs from the 1982 Connecticut Blood Pressure Survey and examines the relationship between high blood pressure knowledge and control of hypertension. We found the average level of knowledge to be high; about 70% of the items were answered correctly. The correlation between spouses' knowledge about high blood pressure was significantly high (r = .41). Multiple regression analysis was used to control for other variables that might influence the spousal correlation in knowledge. When controlling for education, age, socioeconomic status, and hypertension status of both spouses, the correlation between spouses' knowledge remained significant (r = .24). Respondents' knowledge and spouses' knowledge about high blood pressure were significantly related to high blood pressure control among hypertensive persons, particularly to being aware of hypertension and being in current treatment.