What is it about?
We study the community's understanding of cardiovascular diseases (i.e. stroke and heart attacks) and the attendant risk factors (physiological and behavioural), their knowledge and understanding of how these risk factors cause/lead to the development of the said disease conditions, the contextual factors influencing risk perception, and how risk perception (low or high) influences an individual's care-seeking and treatment-adherence behaviour in a poor community living in the slums of Nairobi.
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Why is it important?
Understanding how risk perception influences behaviours by individuals to prevent and control cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors is key in informing behaviour change interventions for prevention and control. This evidence will also help inform the targeting of appropriate interventions to appropriate risk groups in underserved populations, where challenges in accessing [quality] care range from the individual- to health system level.
Perspectives
A lot needs to be done to unpack some of the issues raised here, for the perspective of patients, their caregivers and health care practitioners. Perceptions of the quality of care for cardiovascular diseases in this community will need to be explored in order to understand where they fit in the bigger scheme fo things.
Dr Frederick Murunga Wekesah
Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Understanding of and perceptions towards cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors: a qualitative study among residents of urban informal settings in Nairobi, BMJ Open, June 2019, BMJ,
DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026852.
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