KNOWLEDGE AND PREVENTIVE STRATEGIES OF HYPERTENSION AMONG STAFF OF THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF UYO, NIGERIA

Abstract

As the world transits from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases and from curative to preventive and social medicine, the need to ascertain the level of knowledge and preventive strategies of these noncommunicable diseases become inevitable. Hypertension is a global disease and among one of the non-communicable that is common and occupies 7th in total outpatient disease in the hospital. It occurs both in female and male, in the rural areas and the urban areas. Hence the main purpose of this study is to investigate the level of knowledge and preventive strategies among staff of the Faculty of Education, University of Uyo, Nigeria. Two research questions ad hypothesis were tested at 0.0.5 level of significance. The study employed a cross-sectional descriptive research design. The population of this study comprises 352 staff of the Faculty of Education, University of Uyo, Uyo. The sample of 187 staff of the Faculty of Education was selected for the study using simple sampling technique. Data was collected using the researchers-made survey instrument titled “Knowledge and Preventive Strategies of Hypertension (KPSHQ). The instrument yielded reliable co-efficient of 0.82 with Cronbach Alpha Statistics. Data was analysed using means and independent t-test. The result indicated high knowledge and preventive strategies among staff of Faculty of Education, University of Uyo, Uyo. There was no significant difference in the level of knowledge and preventive measure mostly used among teaching and non-teaching staff of the University of Uyo, Uyo. Following from this, the study recommends among others, that there should be regular checking of blood pressure by the staff, University authority/Government should equip the medical centre, and there should be regular seminar and town hall meeting within the university community on non-commendable disease for proper understanding of the problem.