Assessment Of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Knowledge Among Nursing Students in Four Private Nursing Colleges, A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study from Peshawar, Pakistan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66021/pakmcr1274Keywords:
Cardiovascular Diseases, Risk Factors, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Students, Nursing, Cross-Sectional Studies, PakistanAbstract
Background: Cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors are the major global causes of morbidity and mortality. Pakistan is among the countries experiencing a high prevalence of CVD-related deaths, especially among the youth, in recent years. Nursing students, as future frontline healthcare providers, must be knowledgeable about these risk factors to prevent the disease in others, as well as to reduce their own risk.
Objective: To evaluate nursing students’ knowledge about CVD risk factors and its association with sociodemographic factors.
Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional design using convenience sampling technique was employed. The participants participated were 369 third- and fourth-year nursing students from four private nursing colleges. Data were collected through adopted structured questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.76. For statistical analysis SPSS version 27 was used, and Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were applied for determination of association.
Result: The findings revealed that nursing students had moderate awareness of CVD and its risk factors, with a mean score of 20.10 ± 3.25. Statistically, it was found that nursing students possessed highest awareness about hypertension (94%), obesity (91.1%), stress (85.4%), and dietary factors (86.4%), and had the lowest awareness about HDL cholesterol (47.4%), red meat (47.7 %), slow walking (34.4%), and cholesterol-lowering medications (41.7%). Significant associations in knowledge were found for gender (p < 0.001) and marital status (p = 0.004), with males and single students showing higher scores.
Conclusion: A moderate level of knowledge is possessed by nursing students, but certain deficiencies in knowledge still exist, which emphasize the need for targeted educational programs and curriculum enhancement for better prevention of cardiovascular disease
