Self-reported knowledge and awareness about blood pressure and hypertension: a cross-sectional study of a random sample of men and women aged 60–74 years

Abstract

BackgroundIn general, it is assumed that patient education, by increasing knowledge, may change behavior and lifestyle and promote health. In this context, it is a surprise that knowledge and awareness about blood pressure and hypertension among elderly people is poor. We hypothesized that knowledge about blood pressure and hypertension would be better among individuals with self-reported hypertension compared with subjects without self-reported hypertension.MethodsWe mailed a questionnaire to a random sample of 1,000 subjects living in the municipality of Silkeborg, Denmark. The study sample was drawn from the Central Person Registry.ResultsThe response rate was 72%. Of these, 43% of responders had self-reported hypertension. The people with self-reported hypertension were older, less educated, had higher self-reported blood cholesterol levels, had higher body weight, and more often had a family history of hypertension. More than 80% reported that overweight and obesity increases blood pressure. More than 60% reported that untreated hypertension may cause heart disease or stroke. More than half of the responders did not know their blood pressure, and only 21% knew that hypertension can occur without symptoms. Knowledge about hypertension was independent of self-reported hypertension status, but awareness about blood pressure was most prominent among those with self-reported hypertension.ConclusionGeneral knowledge about blood pressure and hypertension was reasonable, but there is still room for improvement in elderly people’s knowledge and awareness of blood pressure.

Effect of Genetic Information Regarding Salt‐Sensitive Hypertension on the Intent to Maintain a Reduced Salt Diet: Implications for Health Communication in Japan

“…Participants might perceive the threat of hypertension as low. Indeed, several studies have reported that, for the public, hypertension does not seem to pose a threat . Steiner and coworkers suggested that the majority of the public does not know that hypertension is mostly an asymptomatic disease known as “the silent killer.” According to a study by Petrella and Campbell, most of the general public in Canada is unaware of the association between hypertension and heart disease and believes that hypertension is not a serious medical condition.…”

Symptom experiences in hypertension: a mixed methods systematic review

“…HTN is often associated with not having symptoms or reported as unrecognizable symptoms. We found five quantitative studies in this review that discussed HTN as asymptomatic [34,53,54,63,64] or having symptoms that may be periodically present [49]. Most of these studies associated knowledge or lifestyle behavior with beliefs surrounding HTN.…”

“…Most of these studies associated knowledge or lifestyle behavior with beliefs surrounding HTN. Several studies attributed participants reporting 'no symptoms' as a lack of knowledge [34,54,57]. However, cultural factors were influential in three of the studies [34,53,63].…”

“…Anxiety [43,44,49] and distress/stress [43,54,66] were commonly reported in the literature. Uncommon symptoms included insomnia [38], nervousness [42], fear [49], wellbeing [62,66], hostility [62], apathy [52], and affective symptoms [68].…”

“…Studies were heterogenous and symptoms varied. Symptoms that were common in the literature included headache and dizziness [29,30,34,39,41,42,54,56,57,63], as well as less common symptoms such as restless leg syndrome [60,65]. Some studies were focused on specific symptoms associated with HTN [30,35,36,38,39,[42][43][44][45]50,51,53,55,56,60,65,66,68] while others were aimed at specific population outcomes [29,33,34,41,47,48,52,[61][62][63].…”