| Objective: Investigating the awareness rate of risk factors and warning signs of stroke in residents in Yan’an, exploring the role of health education on that of stroke; In order to undertake reliable evidence for the further tertiary prevention and intervention. Methods: Referring “Recommendations in the Guide to Cerebral Vascular Disease”(2010) and questionnaire of America community about the awareness of stroke warning signs and risk factors, to design the “questionnaire about the awareness rate of stroke risk factors and early warning signs”, then surveyed 2500 residents(they have Yan’an city’s or rural household’s accounts and are more than 40 years old, live in Yan’an at least 3 year, including patients and their families) who went to doctors’ in Yan’an University Affiliated Hospital and came to attend the free clinic visits in the community of Baota, Qiaogou, Liulin, Zaoyuan, Fenghuang, Nanshi. Before they filled in the questionnaire, explained the investigation purpose and significance to them. For those people whose educational level is junior middle school or above secondary school, they filled in the questionnaire by using a self-administered method, for those who have low educational level and poor eyesight they used an inquiry method, and there was no time limit to fill in the questionnaire. After the first survey, health education has been carried out in the form of lectures and brochures. 3 months later, the re-survey were conducted on the same residents. Results:1.The first survey revealed: The awareness percentage of the thirteen stroke risk factors ranges from 4.10% to 68.64% respectively, among them, the awareness rates of hyperhomocysteinemia(HHcy), diabetes mellitus, family history, psychosocial stress and depression, heart disease are 4.10%, 33.48%, 40.49%, 44.05%, 44.49% respectively. Among all respondents, the risk factors of stroke awareness rate have significant difference because of their different ages, occupations and educations(P < 0.001). The P values of awareness rate of different gender on hypertension, poor eating, smoking, abdominal obesity, psychosocial stress and depression are less than 0.001, the difference has statistically significance. The awareness percentage of the five stroke warning signs ranges from 46.32% to 61.38% respectively, they also shows difference because of different gender, age, occupation and education level. The P Value of different genders on the awareness of suddenly can’t speak clearly or cannot understand others, suddenly dizzy, unsteady gait is less than 0.001. The P Value of people of different ages on the awareness of suddenly in one or both eyes see things or double vision is 0.001, the rest are less than 0.001.The P Value of people of different occupations on the awareness of suddenly in one or both eyes see things or double vision is more than 0.05, and the P Value of their awareness of the remaining 4 warning signs is less than 0.001. The P Value of people of different education on stroke warning symptoms’ awareness is less than 0.001.2. The survey results showed that the source of knowledge of Yan’an residents range from 19.70% to 46.02% respectively. They got the knowledge of stroke from different ways because of their different genders, ages, occupations and education levels. Among of them, people of different genders got the knowledge from their families, friends and neighbors, books, newspapers and magazines, and the P Value of this is 0.001, compared with different occupations, the p value of the source of knowledge from the families is 0.363, the rest p values less than 0.001, suggest that there is a significant difference between different gender, age, occupation, education of the population of stroke knowledge sources.3. After health education seminars: Compared with the first time, these people’s awareness percentage of the thirteen stroke risk factors had been increased. Among them, the proportion of residents who were able to recognize that hypertension, diabetes mellitus,hyperlipidemia, smoking, abdominal obesity, lack of physical exercise are all stroke risk factors have significantly improved compared with the first survey(P <0.001). People who knew that heart disease, carotid artery stenosis, poor eating, excessive alcohol use, psychosocial stress and depression, high homocysteine are all stroke risk factors for stroke are also increased compared with the first survey(P < 0.05). The awareness rate of five stroke warning signs also has increased compared with the first time. The awareness rates of different stroke warning symptoms all have statistic significance(P < 0.001, 0.001, 0.001, P = 0.003), except the awareness rate of that sudden dizziness and gait instability are stroke warning symptoms, it has no statistic significance compared with the first survey(P = 0.1). Conclusion:1. At present, residents of Yan’an city know little about the risk factors and early warning symptoms of stroke, and this knowledge quantity varies among different genders, ages, occupations, and education levels.2. The source of the knowledge about stroke varies among people of different genders, ages, occupations and education levels, which shows that health education about stroke is necessary.3. Lectures of health education can help people to increase the awareness rate of stroke risk factors and early warning symptoms, and further improve their understanding of stroke related knowledge.4. Health education has an important role on improving people’s awareness rate of stroke related knowledge, but health education on stroke morbidity and mutilation rate, mortality is a very slow and long process that needs a good deal of time. However, it’s not difficult to speculate that this knowledge can help people to better understand stroke primary prevention and secondary prevention, and improve the medication compliance, reduce the delayed time of pre-hospital of stroke patients, which would make stroke patients come to hospital in time, then stroke’s morbidity, recurrence rate, disability and mortality will be reduced. |
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