Awareness and Barriers to Lifestyle Changes in Managing Cardiovascular Diseases among Patients Visiting Cardiac Hospitals, Rawalpindi

Abstract

Background: Cardiovascular diseases are major cause of death and disabilities in Pakistan and worldwide and burden on health care system due to CVD’s is increasing day by day. Pakistan is one of the developing countries where knowledge and practices toward cardiovascular disease prevention and management is not encouraging and appreciative. It is therefore necessary to assess awareness and major barriers to lifestyle changes in managing cardiovascular diseases so that strategies and policies can be developed and implemented accordingly. Objectives: This study aimed to assess awareness and barriers to lifestyle changes in managing cardiovascular diseases among patients visiting cardiac hospitals of Rawalpindi, Pakistan and to find association of awareness and barriers to life style changes with socio demographic factors. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was carried out in cardiac hospitals of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. A total of 222 respondents (aged ≥18) who visited OPDs were randomly selected for the purpose of the study. Chi-square test of association was applied to examine the association of outcome variables with socio-demographic factors. Results: Out of 222 respondents (51.8%, n=115) were male. Most of the respondents were aged 20-56 years (61.7%). Out of total 222 respondents (46.4%, n=103) had good awareness. Chi-square test of association was run for demographic variables with computed score for awareness which showed significant association of gender, education level, working status, monthly income and residence (p = <0.05). Barrier most frequently reported to increased daily exercise was lack of time to do increased daily exercise (73%,n=162), barrier most frequently v reported to eat low fat food was it took too longer to prepare low fat food (65.3%,n=145) and barrier most frequently reported to smoking cessation was lack of motivation to stop smoking (12.60%,n=22). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that most of the respondents had poor awareness to lifestyle in managing cardiovascular diseases and barriers most commonly reported in the current study were lack of time to do regular exercise, longer time to cook low fat food and lack of motivation to stop smoking. It was concluded that respondents with low income and education level, non-working respondents had poor awareness. Keywords: Awareness, Barriers, Cardiac patients, Cardiac hospitals, cardiovascular diseases, Lifestyle changes, Rawalpindi.