Health behaviors in major chronic diseases patients: Trends and regional variations analysis, 2008–2017, Korea

Abstract

Background: Improving the health behaviors of those with chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes is important for disease management. Few in-depth studies have been conducted in Korea on the health behaviors of chronic disease patients. This study examined the health behaviors of chronic disease patients over time and compared them with those of the general population.Methods: Data obtained from the Korea Community Health Survey from 2008 to 2017 were analyzed. Thirteen diseases were included in this analysis, namely, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, stroke, myocardial infarction, angina, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, asthma, allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis, cataract, and depression. The current smoking rate, drinking rate, and the walking rate, which are leading health behaviors necessary for preventing chronic diseases, were analyzed by disease type. We compared patients’ health behaviors with those of the general population and identified regional variations.Results: Although the current overall smoking rate was seemingly declining, the overall monthly drinking and high-risk drinking rates were increasing. In 2017, patients experiencing depression symptoms had a higher smoking rate than did the general population; hypertension and diabetes patients had a higher risk-drinking rate than did the latter. The general population’s walking rate was highest. There were considerable variations by region among chronic disease patients.Conclusions: Chronic disease patients displayed worse health behaviors than those of the general population, in some instances. Rather than focusing only on chronic disease patients’ medication adherence, strategies must be devised to improve their smoking cessation rate, decrease their drinking rate, and increase their walking rate.

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“…Our result is in line with a study which revealed that people with major chronic diseases did not notably show better health behaviors, and some people even showed worse health behaviors than the general population. 20 Longitudinal data from Canada indicated that modest changes were observed among people with chronic diseases. For example, smoking cessation was observed significantly among all groups of chronic health conditions, yet a large portion of smokers did not quit at all.…”

Prevalence, incidence and relative risk of cardiovascular disease risk factors in adults with atopic dermatitis: A systematic review

“…After removing duplicates, 1277 titles/abstracts were screened; of these, 192 full‐text articles were assessed. Of the 71 included studies, 22 were retrospective cohort studies, 5,20–40 36 were cross‐sectional studies, 6,10,19,41–73 seven were prospective cohort studies 74–80 and six were case‐control studies 81–86 (Supporting Information: Table ). Studies were conducted in a broad range of countries in Europe, North America and Asia, with the most numerous being from Denmark and the United States ( n = 14 each).…”