Assessing healthcare professional knowledge, attitudes, and practices on hypertension management. Announcing a new World Hypertension League resource

Abstract

To assist hypertension control programs and specifically the development of training and education programs on hypertension for healthcare professionals, the World Hypertension League has developed a resource to assess knowledge, attitudes, and practices on hypertension management. The resource assesses: (1) the importance of hypertension as a clinical and public health risk; (2) education in national or international hypertension recommendations; (3) lifestyle causes of hypertension; (4) measurement of blood pressure, screening, and diagnosis of hypertension; (5) lifestyle therapy counseling; (6) cardiovascular risk assessment; (7) antihypertensive drug therapy; and (8) adherence to therapy. In addition, the resource assesses the attitudes and practices of healthcare professionals for task sharing/shifting, use of care algorithms, and use of registries with performance reporting functions. The resource is designed to help support the Global Hearts Alliance to provide standardized and enhanced hypertension control globally.

Hypertension knowledge, attitudes, and practices of nurses and physicians in primary care in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia

“…The clinical curriculum was designed to address the major issues identified in this KAP survey, and a follow‐up survey is being planned after the main program interventions have been implemented. The original World Hypertension League KAP survey is available for other programs to use . Other interventions in the Better Hearts Better Cities Program in Ulaanbaatar include a multisectoral stakeholder steering group, public advocacy, and communications, the development of new Mongolian hypertension recommendations that include a simplified diagnostic and therapeutic algorithm, a registry with performance reporting, and an independent monitoring and evaluation program.…”

“…The WHL survey design was based on the confidence conviction model . Components of the questionnaire included general characteristics of respondents (six questions), knowledge of hypertension and the 2010 Mongolian hypertension guidelines (16 questions), attitudes (five questions), and practices (14 questions) toward hypertension management, as well as hypertension management priorities (seven questions) and confidence (three questions).…”

“…There are few KAP studies on healthcare professionals and none that we are aware of that directly compare different primary healthcare disciplines (nurses and physicians), the breadth of hypertension management, and the core interventions promoted as global best practices (eg, task sharing, use of simple treatment algorithms and validated automated blood pressure devices, registries with performance reporting functions) by the World Health Organization (WHO, https://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/hearts/en/, accessed March 30, 2019). The WHL recently developed a novel hypertension KAP survey to comprehensively evaluate hypertension management at the primary care level and including the core WHO interventions . Previously, we have reported results of a modified version of the WHL KAP survey, examining physicians from primary healthcare centers in Ulaanbaatar .…”

“…The WHL recently developed a novel hypertension KAP survey to comprehensively evaluate hypertension management at the primary care level and including the core WHO interventions . Previously, we have reported results of a modified version of the WHL KAP survey, examining physicians from primary healthcare centers in Ulaanbaatar . Overall, knowledge of hypertension clinical practice, confidence in managing hypertension, and specific clinical practices were suboptimal but physicians prioritized and had a positive attitude toward hypertension management in their clinics …”

Team‐based care for hypertensive patients is essential in low‐ and middle‐income countries

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In 2017, the World Hypertension League announced a new resource to support the development of hypertension training programmes for healthcare professionals. 1 Three key elements are assessed with the tool: knowledge, attitudes, and practice such that the tool has been referred to as a KAP survey. The survey is a useful instrument to identify where gaps in KAP lie and in which healthcare professionals.

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