UMMS Affiliation

Department of Quantitative Health Sciences

Publication Date

2016-01-01

Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Cardiology | Cardiovascular Diseases | International Public Health | Public Health Education and Promotion

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: India is the second most populous country in the world and two-thirds of its population is less than 35 years old. This survey was conducted to assess the level of health awareness of cardiovascular disease in adolescent school-aged children 14-16 years old, with the goal of establishing school-based health education and development of heart-healthy lifestyle practices.

METHODS: A school-based survey was conducted in the rural district of West Midnapore, India between June and July of 2014. This involved a pre-evaluation of cardiovascular disease (CVD) health awareness, a short presentation on CVD, and a post-evaluation of CVD health awareness.

RESULTS: A total of 2995 students (48% response rate) from 20 schools participated in the survey. The mean age of the students in the study sample was 14.7 years, 46% were male, 53% were in the 9th grade, and the rest were in the 10th grade. After assessing students' awareness in six domains with 20 multiple-choice questions with a maximum score of 100, the mean pre-test score was 41.1 (SD+/-10.5) and the mean post-test score was 48.1 (SD+/-16.9) (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Awareness of CVD and its risk factors was far from optimal among the adolescent school-aged children in this study. A school-based educational program may help improve awareness of CVD and reduce the future disease burden in the community. The results of this study may be useful in formulating a nationwide school health program to deal with the emerging epidemic of CVD in countries such as India.

Keywords

Cardiovascular disease prevention, Health awareness, Risk factors, School health program, Survey

Rights and Permissions

Open Access funded by Cardiological Society of India under a Creative Commons license.

DOI of Published Version

10.1016/j.ihj.2015.10.302

Source

Indian Heart J. 2016 Jan-Feb;68(1):43-7. doi: 10.1016/j.ihj.2015.10.302. Epub 2016 Jan 11. Link to article on publisher's site

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Indian heart journal

Related Resources

Link to Article in PubMed

PubMed ID

26896265

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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